Casual Conversation

Back in ‘98 I worked for a company installing trailer hitches. Sometimes you have to lay at odd angles to get into the space to install the hitch. One day I was at an angle that a small shard of metal went under my safety glasses and into my eye. I did not think much of it until later that night when my eyelid started to catch on the metal. I went to the ER and they extracted it. But it was so much rust it dissolved in my eye. I had to have eye surgery the next day to remove the rust. I am now going blind in the eye. The doctors cannot say with certainty it is because of the injury, but it is the likely culprit. My other eye still has really good vision.

During and immediately after the accident the company took really good care of me. All my medical bills were paid, I was given extra leave. It was not until 7 years after I left the company I found out how bad my vision was (because it was a slow degrade I did not notice).

A long long time ago on an ocean far far away we were doing some maintenance work that was out of the ordinary.

First a coworker of mine hurt his foot. Nothing too serious.
Then shortly after, I hurt my arm. Nothing to9 serious.

Our boss, being the sensible kind, called a meeting and said something along the lines of "These incidents are minor, but they're on the rise, and statistically that means major incidents are on the rise too, even if we haven't had any yet."
Basically, we did a timeout to reassess what we were doing, and how, to make sure we were doing it safely. The attitude was pretty much that our boss didn't care how long things took, as long as it was done safely. Among the best bosses I've ever had.

My hand and my coworkers foot was fine after a few days.

Well, my disability isn't directly job related, but I did get hurt in other ways.

Over the years of being a nurse's assistant, I had a few muscle pulls, got punched a few times (Alzheimer's is a bitch), that kind of thing. Easy to recover from.

But, my side gig as a bouncer could get problematic lol. The titty bars were usually chill, and nothing worse than a split lip level of things happened on those jobs.

But the gay bars, in particular the drag club that was well known to area bigots, that sent me to the hospital a few times, and I lost count of how many non hospital injuries I got.

I was lucky in one respect, the owner of those bars was a great employer. Anthony worker's comp didn't cover, he went out of pocket for, no complaints, and made sure we were paid on time, again out of pocket if need be.

But, the worst was probably the fractured ribs, on the job. Got cut and stabbed a couple times, but not bad enough to keep me from working my main job. Had worse injuries off the job though.

It was damn near a month before I could do anything that wasn't desk work, which isn't something a nurse's assistant is going to be used for. Ribs being damaged fucks up everything, but they'll heal eventually.

Now, outside of the arthritis and back issues that aren't from work, the worst injury was a fractured vertebrae I picked up doing some less than fun fighting at a gay rights meeting that got invaded by bigots. that was a six month recovery, and it still gives me problems.

Since you're looking for hope long term, with all the crap my discs have done, and the arthritis, I can say for sure that even progressive issues, you can definitely find a way to a good life. It won't be the same life, but it can be good.

Injuries? Even the bad ones, once the initial healing is over, there's a path to having a fulfilling life. I took care of paralyzed patients, and it was actually really rare for their lives to not be at least okay. It isn't the same as being fully able, there's limitations and obstacles. But it isn't inherently a bad life.

I'm in a disability and chronic pain support group too. Even there, with people that have agonizing pain levels, it's still possible to have enough good days to make life worth living, and some of our members are in the kind of pain every day that I've felt with fresh injuries.

I call any level of living life instead of just surviving a victory over disability. So, even if your injury changes your life entirely, even if you lose the ability to work, there's still a future that's worth working for.

When I lost the ability to work, my entire identity kit fell apart. Like, I had built my sense of self on the job, being strong, and being able to make other people's lives better. That's why I took a job as a nurse's assistant in the first place, and why I never hated it even after I wanted to do something else.

Rebuilding from that level of change is brutal. It took almost a decade before I could do any martial arts training again, and it was pretty much a watered down thing. Can't do much strength training that involves anything below the nipple line because of discs being wrecked, but that's still better than it was originally, when I couldn't even breathe without pain.

So, there's hope. It might look dim along the way, and if the injury is bad enough, what you're hoping for can be much less than what you had before, but it's still worth the struggle more often than not. Injuries get better, barring very limited exceptions. Even those might get better on a long enough life line, I dunno. You'll reach a point of stasis, and be able to figure out what comes next.

Also, lawyer up asap. If your employer is going to pull a fast one, having a good worker's comp attorney in your contact list is a good idea.

Seriously. When I had to quit working, I got dumped, had to deal with the whole us disability process, went years without proper medical care, and literally only didn't eat a bullet because my dog was there and loved me out of that darkness. I came through it. I'm married, have a kid, and managed to get through some ugly stuff that isn't on topic. There's always victory available.

Not much of a story, this was years ago when I worked for a Honda supplier on a welding line. I got my hand clamped in a machine that used robot welders. I’m not even sure how I did it to be honest, since typically it required two hands to push buttons to clamp everything up on those lines. It was clamped for a few seconds before somebody got it free, hurt like shit, I get sent to the ER for an hour or two. Got prescribed pain meds, but otherwise no broken bones, it’s whatever, nothing serious, go back to work to finish my shift even. It’s numb for a few weeks but eventually have a full recovery.

The most infuriating thing about the experience relates to how work handles the accident. You see, they gave out bonuses every year if you had perfect attendance. That year I had absolutely perfect attendance, up until I had to go to the ER. Fuckingbitchmotherfuckingasholes made me lose my attendance bonus over that shit. I don’t even remember the amount at this point, it was over 10 years ago, so it was peanuts, but just the amount of dedication it took at the time to not be late for one whole year, only to have it stripped away for that was maddening. Fuck those people.

I've dislocated my shoulder fourteen times. One of those times was on the job at a retail location. I went to the ER, no help (financial or otherwise) from the employer; the next shift, I was chastised for alarming customers by bringing an ambulance onto the lot.

I was very young at the time and didn't realize that that was not reasonable.

Tore a calf muscle, had workmans comp. It was fine.

My wife is a worker's comp adjuster so DM me if you have any questions or concerns about the process and I'll relay it to her

One of my first jobs in high school, cashier, undiagnosed adhd. Found a pocket knife near the register and left alone as the only cashier in the section of the store near closing so nobody around. Playing with knife, cutting up a pen casing I found, no real goal. Blade slips and slice thumb very badly through the nail but missed a bone. Customer walks up immediately after I saw the blood dripping and had to go to urgent care for 12 stitches and a couple booster shots. Thankfully LNI handled it. Was let go a few weeks later as “end of seasonal help”.

I tripped and fell over an improperly placed TV stand in the meeting room. I still have a lump on my shin like 8-10 weeks later. I did see my GP but it's not going away.

I've almost gotten run over several times, maybe because the same drivers who flip if so much as a scratch is on their vehicle don't understand the rules about pedestrian safety. They yield for me when I'm walking my friend's pet skunk though.