Rant #3,167: Shine On

My wife went to the doctor yesterday to check out how her head injury is progressing, and I am happy to say that while she isn’t over the mountain yet, she is high enough up that we can finally see the other side.

She was given pretty much a 98-percent bill of health, and while she still cannot do some things and has to have some restrictions on other things, the worst appears to be over …

At least physically, but now the real fun begins.

This is a workman’s compensation case, and anyone who has been through that process knows that these cases are not easy to settle, and can take many months—or years—to come to a conclusion.

My wife’s case has its first hearing tomorrow, and we already are pretty sure that little will be settled during that hearing, as the other side has taken umbrage about my wife’s injury and what they feel they are liable for.

Without getting into specifics, they are dragging this on because they can, and that is their right to do so—

Which means there is little we can do about it … play the game the right way and see where our chips fall.

There is no way out of it, and these cases can go on and on and on without a conclusion for a long, long time.

My wife is even being prevented from going to physical therapy because the other side is arguing the case, so this dragging on of the case is really just a lot of lip service and mind games, and most importantly, it is preventing my wife from getting the full care that she needs to get back to where she was before the accident.

But really, the workman’s comp system does not add that into the equation, so while my wife is healing naturally, perhaps if she was able to take physical therapy, she would reach the top level of health quicker.

There is really nothing we can do about all of this beyond what we have already done: get a lawyer, play the game, and hope for the best.

I knew that this was going to be a struggle from the get go.

When my wife called me all those weeks ago to tell me what happened, I rushed to the hospital and was given workman’s comp paperwork that had to be given to her employer.

I went to her place of work, asked for the manager, and he took the paperwork—but not one time in the few minutes I was there did he ask me about how my wife—his employee—was doing.

It was as if I was simply the courier bringing over some paperwork about something I knew nothing about, and left the building when it was delivered.

(There, you see, I do, in fact, have courier experience!)

Anyway, to not ask how your injured employee was doing--one that was injured at your own establishment—was kind of harsh, and really rubbed me the wrong way.

It is said that employees are just numbers to the employer, and this kind of behavior backed that up big time.

So whatever the case, it all leads up to the same thing: that my wife was injured at work and the other side does not want to pony up all the insurance money due her.

And they are fighting it tooth and nail, and we are fighting back.

Happily, through it all, my wife is getting better by the day, but this nonsense is still weighing heavily on her head.

We just have to go with the facts, and hopefully, this case will work itself out.

But again, I have heard of such cases going on for years until a conclusion is finally reached, so we are prepared for this first hearing to be nothing more than the first of many hearings.

In spite of it all, my wife is much improved from this injury, and I guess that is the real light at the end of this tunnel—

And it is shining brightly, maybe not at full level, but it continues to shine on.