Since February, I have been trying to get permission to work from home full time. Work has been kind enough to let me work from home while I go through the DTA (Duty to Accommodate) process.
I am so so so grateful for my amazing bosses. I think this could have been infinitely harder and more stressful without them. They’ve supported me and fought for me the whole time.
Unfortunately, this decision isn’t theirs. It’s the HR department’s and they’ve been pushing back. Their first response was that they could accommodate my ADHD and Autism in the office with some minor changes. As for my migraines, they said, “As for the migraines, when Eric is feeling unwell, we encourage you to remind him that sick leave is available to take. The LR team also understands that should a migraine begin, it is understandable that he may not be able to commute to the office and may be required to work from home that day. That being said, if you notice trends, we encourage you to reach out to us to ensure compliance.”
That’s a lot of words for, “His migraines are his own responsibility and he should use his sick leave for them. But if he does it a lot, contact us to deal with it.” It gives me flashbacks to being yelled at for absenteeism by my former manager.
I didn’t understand how people could accumulate sick leave until Covid hit. Suddenly, I wasn’t getting as sick and I wasn’t getting burnt out every month.
Anyway, now HR is requesting an evaluation by my primary care physician, not my psychiatrist. The form they’ve given me is the same for someone who has a chronic injury. (I know this because my former doctor filled it out when I started my arm pain.)
My worry is that all the things on the form, I can do. I can sit at a desk and work, I can do my job. But there’s no room for what doing it in the office does for my physical and mental health. Sure I can do it. I did it for 14 years before the pandemic, but I had to take lots of sick days (was fired for that), some unpaid vacation, and it physically hurt me.
I’m fairly certain, unless my doctor reacts better than I expect, that I’ll be going back to the office by the new year. I feel helpless, angry, stressed, and worried.
My mysterious illness where I have bowel cramps, fever, aches and pains, and weakness; came back again. I think it might be allergy and / or overdoing it related. I’m not sure. I went to the ER in 2018 for it and they found nothing, I saw my family doctor and he did blood and feces testing and he found nothing, I saw a virtual doctor and he told me I was fat. My family doctor said we’d deal with it if it happens often, but I’m not sure what that can be defined as. It only happens once or twice a year.
That came back and hit me like a truck. Some of the worst pain I’ve had since COVID, hard to breathe, fatigue, aches and pains everywhere, fever of 102-103F, and mind fog. It hit me on the Monday night of last week and I’m still dealing with the fatigue and some minor bowel issues.
I still think it’s a combination of allergies and stress. I had hung out with a few cats, outdoors, and I also went swiming (I have had mild allergies to bromine and chlorine since I was a kid.) My google-ing (yeah I know google isn’t a doctor) seems to think it’s my body thinking I ate allergens and going extra and attacking.
Arms
As I mentioned in my June Update, I’ve been doing physio with the Ottawa Workers Network, through WSIB. In June, I said my pain was at 6-7 out of 10. I’d say it’s closer to a 5-6 now. I’m hoping the change is because of treatment and not just because I’ve been off more than working the past few weeks.
I’d say that for the past month my pain is ever-present but manageable. Which was the WSIBs goal.
I had my last treatment and assessment on Tuesday. I’ll have a follow up on Monday to talk to the elbow/shoulder surgeon and it’s expected I’ll be discharged and cleared for a full work schedule.
The numbness in my arms has gone down but isn’t gone completely.
The numbness in my face has gotten worse.
The vision in my left eye is about the same,, but I’m getting more shadows and having a hard time with my night vision from that eye.
I’m still getting dizzy spells that feel like vertigo. Like the whole world tilts sideways.
Clumsiness
My Occupational Therapist says that the clumsiness is due to the injury screwing over my spacial perception.
As for the inability to know how much I’m gripping and dropping things, she says it’s a combination of that and a side effect of my mild carpal tunnel.
MRI
I have an MRI today in Kingston and hopefully it’ll help figure out what the problem is. I hope it’s clear, but I also want to know.
Overall AKA TL:DR
I’m doing a little better but I’m worried about the root cause. MRI should help eliminate the worst case scenarios.
A lot and very little has happened since my April update.
Let’s start with good news. I have a date for my MRI on July 14th. I also have a date to go with (Jen will be driving me. With two kids you must take whatever you can as a date.)
What’s Going on with Treatment
It looks like my time with the OWN treatment team will be ending in mid July. I’ve been doing exercises to strengthen the muscles, physiotherapy to loosen the muscles, and some therapy to think about muscles.
The therapy has been helping the most, stress relief and permission to be selfish and self care are good. I’ve also been given some techniques to control my emotional spirals and overreactions.
The exercises and physio have been maybe helping. I have better control of my fine motor skills and my physio says my muscles are looser. They’re going to give me a home routine.
We’re also working towards getting me back to full time work instead of my old schedule of 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off.
How am I Feeling
My pain is steady. That sounds bad, but it’s actually a good thing. I’m not experiencing any massive flares. I’m still at a 6-7 pain level, but no more jumping to 8 and feeling sick.
The numbness in my arms, hands, and face are still there and haven’t changed. The vision problems I’m having with my left eye are still there. I’ve had a couple of really scary vertigo episodes where it felt like the entire planet shifted 90 degrees. Not fun.
My mysterious illness where I have bowel cramps, fever, aches and pains, and weakness; came back again. I think it might be allergy and / or overdoing it related. I’m not sure. I went to the ER in 2018 for it and they found nothing, I saw my family doctor and he did blood and feces testing and he found nothing, I saw a virtual doctor and he told me I was fat. My family doctor said we’d deal with it if it happens often, but I’m not sure what that can be defined as. It only happens once or twice a year.
Now we wait and see what the MRI says. WSIB will be washing their hands of me in July and I’ll be doing what I can to manage the pain. They say that my body is reacting well and that the pain will reduce over time. I hope they’re right.
Since my last update I’ve started physio, exercises, and occupational therapy. It’s only been a week, but it feels like a lot of effort for little gain. I’m going to continue because at least it’s completely covered by WSIB. The people are nice but everything feels fast.
I saw a pain doctor. He was rushed and said I should continue what I’m doing and gave me some exercises that are the same as the kinesiologist has been doing. I’m glad he didn’t give me any pills. I’m already dealing with a lot of mind fog, I don’t want to deal with any more.
I had called my doctor to try and talk to him about MS and I managed to get an appointment. He said I had a lot of the symptoms but that the neurologist should have caught it. (Same guy who told me I was too young and should just ignore it.) However since I have the symptoms he has referred me to get an MRI. It’ll image my brain, neck, and back to make sure. This should help diagnose MS or any form of cancer.
My father died of brain cancer and my grandmother of leukemia, so I’m trying not to panic at the idea.
Reality Sucks, or Yes, I am disabled
I’m starting to come to the realization that I’m disabled.
My energy levels, lung capacity, and overall strength have never fully recovered from covid in February 2020. I’m told it’ll get better, but it’s a slow process.
Add to that the dizziness and fatigue I’ve been feeling since last year and it means I’m not in good shape or feeling well. In short, I’m disabled.
It’s frustrating me because I am physically able to do almost anything I need to but I start getting tired and pained quickly. If I push myself too far, I start to get dizzy and clumsy. Just setting up my backyard, with lots of help from the kids, left me feeling horrible for two days after. Headache, inability to think, pain everywhere, short of breath, fatigue, and extra pain in my arms.
I’ve been experiencing something similar with picketing but that’s a different post.
Accepting that I’m disabled means I need to start finding my limits and living inside them. Once I know what’s wrong, I can hopefully work up to increasing activity. For now, I’ll have to be extra careful with gardening.
So that’s my update, it’s all over the place but I’m okay and things are moving. Let’s hope it’s in the right direction.
It’s been almost two months since I updated you. It hasn’t been a particularly enlightening two months.
I did finally get an appointment for the specialty clinic. That appointment went well; I have an awesome occupational therapist and doctor who are in charge of my case. The doctor, unfortunately, is an elbow surgeon who’s not quite sure why WSIB has referred me to him, but he’s willing to send me to specialists and tests.
They sent me to a Neurologist. I was really excited to finally see one. He did the exact same test that the carpal tunnel doctor did back in August. He says I have a little bit of carpel tunnel in my wrists, but that shouldn’t be bothering me. There’s no indication that my nerves are damaged or that they’ve had any issues at all.
He ended the exam saying that I was too young to worry about it and that if it were up to him he’d say to forget all this WSIB stuff and just go back to my normal routine and then added that the whole thing was ridiculous.
When I asked him about the numbness in my face he said, “That’s nothing. Ignore it.”
I was disheartened and angry. I’m not sure if he thought I was faking or that I was exaggerating my pain, but it was really condescending.
The nice elbow doctor and occupational therapist had scheduled an MRI for my neck, but with the Neurologist saying that I don’t have any nerve damage, they canceled it.
The downside to the clinic is that I only get appointments every 6 weeks. My next one is early April and hopefully they won’t be as dismissive as the Neurologist.
Unfortunately, I’m still in a lot of pain and it’s not getting better. My face is still numb and it aches a little when I work too long. I also find the vision in my left eye gets worse when I overdo it.
Between the pain, the clumsiness, and the numbness in my face, I’m starting to suspect MS. When I had an optometrist appointment in December, he said he couldn’t get my left eye to be as clear. I asked him about the numbness and that I sometimes got blurry vision in my left eye. He said that it couldn’t be nerves and that it’s possibly a side effect of fatigue. He said the only thing he knew that would affect my eye and not be seen in his tests was MS.
I’d hoped the Neurologist would have been able to test for that, but he didn’t.
MS is a scary prospect, but I’d rather find out than not know. There are plenty of other options; Fibromyalgia, Myofascial Pain Syndrome, and some much scarier, like ALS or cancer.
So a lot happened, but nothing new was discovered. Let’s hope this is just another step to figuring it out.
No, not that sort of doctor. I saw a medical doctor. An elbow surgeon whom WSIB referred me to. I also saw a very nice occupational therapist. All three of us were confused as to why WSIB sent me to an elbow surgeon, but after a very thorough history review and exam they concluded I needed to see a neurologist. (What my family doctor said 6 months ago.)
They’re also going to schedule an MRI for my neck.
The surgeon said that since it’s both arms, that it’s most likely neck or brain. Neck is most likely since I’m not getting headaches or nausea. (Of course he said that and this weekend I’ve had both, but I’m 98% sure it’s just weather and stress.)
I should hear in the next few weeks about the MRI and then within the next month about the neurologist.
THINGS ARE MOVING! I’m really relieved to have finally gotten to this point. Next milestone, figure out what’s wrong.
As you’ve read, I’ve had a few health issues of late. Long story short, I have some sort of injury to my arms. It’s been painful and limiting since June.
My doctor finally sent my files to WSIB. (Suspiciously after Jen had a talk with him during Dragon’s physical appointment.) That’s the good news.
Back in 2020 or 2019 I went to see the doctor about my hands hurting. They ache when the weather changes and it’s anoying and hurts, but wasn’t getting worse with use. (Thankfully, since I wrote 4 novels and finished one afterwards) He did some x-rays and couldn’t find anything wrong, so he sent me to physio. I got the referral in early 2020 and when the pandemic hit, I decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
That’s all in my medical history and someone or something flagged it as needing to be assessed with WSIB. So they need to decide if the pain in my hands is the same thing as the pain in my arms.
WSIB rules say that workplace injuries have to be declared within 6 months. In other words, if they decide this is the same thing, they’re cutting me loose and saying good luck.
Assuming everything goes well, it’ll be a week for them to decide it’s a different injury and then another week to decide if I get sent to their clinic.
Best case scenario, I’ll get to see a WSIB doctor in the new year… worst case I need to go through my family doctor and we’re talking 6-18 months to see a neurologist.
My pain is averaging a 7 or 8 most days and the tingling and numbness in my arms has spread to the shoulders. On my left side, it’s affecting my face. It feels like the muscle has fallen asleep.
The hardest part is at night. With painkillers and voltaren, I still wake up every 20-30 minutes because of the pain.
I’m tired, I’m in pain, and it’s getting worse every week. I’m not sure how much longer I can go at this pace, but I’m trying my best to cooperate with WSIB in hopes that I can see a doctor soon.
Update number two. The first one was at the beginning of August and honestly, there isn’t much of an update to give. Started out that in June, the first doctor told me I had carpal tunnel and an ulnar nerve compression. Then I saw my family doctor and he said that I had tendonitis, specifically tennis elbow, and possibly carpal tunnel.
Then I went to the specialist in Carpal tunnel. I did the test where they electrocute you and try to figure out which nerves are working. And at the time, he said that I had no carpal tunnel and he didn’t believe it was tendonitis, that it was myofasciitis.
I then have spent the past month trying to get an appointment with my doctor. He wanted to wait until he got the notes from the specialist. They got it last week. I got in contact with my doctor’s office and I was extended leave because I am still a lot of pain. Pretty much fingers to here hurts right now. And although physio is helping a lot, it’s not fast.
Fast forward to last week, when I went to my doctor’s office to talk to the nurse and to get things signed, I said I was really worried and needed an appointment with the doctor because this is getting ridiculous.
One person was telling me I didn’t have anything and the specialist that I didn’t have carpal tunnel and the nurse goes, “Whoa, no, no. I read the report. He says you have signs of carpal tunnel.”
I have no idea what’s going on, No idea whatsoever. Hopefully in the next week or so, my doctor will call me back, make an appointment, and we can figure this out. Because even WSIB and OHS are getting a little impatient. My work is wondering when I’m coming back. I would just like to heal and get better and get back to work.
I’m also getting a little antsy. I went from writing a thousand words a day up to like six thousand a week, to writing a thousand a month.
And that was really slow. I wrote the sereal story and even with my new ergonomic mini keyboard and everything, it’s… it’s… ah.. hard. Thankfully, the writing still flows out easily. It’s just the… The pain afterwards that is not much fun. So, unfortunately, the update is a non-update, but that’s what we have so far.
Hopefully, I’ll have more news soon and then we can proceed with an actual plan for getting better. That’s my hope. That’s what I want. I want to plan. I’d like plans, I like breaking plans, but in this case, I want to make a plan and stick to it. Hopefully I can start writing again and by the new year. That’s, that’s my big hope. If not, then I have to consider voice to text as a permanent solution and it sucks, but it’s better than nothing.
The other big thing that I’ve been doing is very slowly roasting, and with the help of my children and wife, packaging coffee. So, if you’re going to be at Ottawa Comic Con, we should have twelve flavours, including two that have never been in a convention before.
So that’s exciting. Hope to see you there. Hope that my next update is either by text or way more optimistic.
Sunday morning, you and your sister were snuggling. Which apparently is code for wrestling or ultimate fighting, because a few minutes in, you started crying.
Your eye was red and you said it hurt. We couldn’t see anything in it. We tried to flush it out and you said it was okay so we forgot about it.
After breakfast, you burst into tears and said your eye hurt. We flushed it again and put a wet towel on your eye. That seemed to work.
Then every five to ten minutes, you burst into tears and your eye would look red again, so we called the nurse hotline (which is now 811) and the nurse told us to take you to the hospital.
CHEO had an estimated wait time of three and a half hours. Your mum went with you over dinner (about 3 hours) and then we switched. You refused to eat anything but your mum’s mixed nuts. I might have made them sound deliciously forbidden.
When you were called, we were brought to a room and waited less then a minute for the doctor. She was awesome; she put some numbing agent in your eye and then some orange dye that showed her where you were hurt. The dye went into the tear and it glowed orange. Really cool to see. Well… from my angle anyway.
Altogether, it was about 5 hours at CHEO, which is pretty good in my opinion.
Pegasus with the remnants of the orange dye on his eye.
You have a small tear in your cornea (the coloured part of your eye) but it’s not close to your pupil and it should heal quickly. We have some REALLY FUN (no not really) antibiotic cream to put in your eye every night for 5-7 nights.
You were really good. It’s certainly not the first place I wanted to take you after your vaccinations.
I’m really glad it wasn’t worse and I hope you heal quickly. Listening to your pitiful moans as you fell asleep tonight was hearbreaking.
I am so thankful for your Grand-dad; he drove us there and back three times across town. We are very lucky to have your grandparents to help out and that they’re so awesome.
I decided to try to record a blog post and that way I don’t have to worry about typing long blog posts; so today will be all about my health issues and how I’m doing.
But effectively in June, I started having massive arm pain in this part of the arm and this part of the arm, on both sides, and my doctor diagnosed me with tendonitis and possible carpal tunnel. I was scheduled to go to do some more tests for carpal tunnel specifically; I just got those last week and good news: I don’t need surgery!
It looks like I don’t have any issues with carpal tunnel; the carpal tunnel specialist said that he thought maybe there was something muscular.
My physio, which I’m seeing three times a week, is helping a lot.
She’s a godsend.
She thinks it has something to do with my ulnar nerve.
Basically, all this is telling you more tests, more time.
Meanwhile, I’ve been following the proper procedures and filling out workman’s compensation forms.
Oh my gosh!
Filling out forms when you have tendonitis hurts. Pencils, typing…
Thank heavens for Jen.
If it wasn’t for her, I would be having a lot of trouble right now.
Beyond that, I am doing better.
It’s been a month and a little bit and it’s no longer a burning, sharp pain.
It’s now a burning ache, and if I don’t do too much, which means not going on my phone.
too much, not typing too much, not cooking too much, not changing too many diapers, that kind of thing, I’m OK. It hurts, but I’m…
The problem gets when I’m trying to do something.
So at the end of July I didn’t want to break my own rules and fail on the serial story, so I typed 1000 words over three or four nights and it was hard.
I’m not going to be able to go back to my 3 to 5000 words a week that I used to do, and that makes me really, really sad.
Hopefully with Physio, by the end of August, I’ll be able to do a little bit more, but until I know for sure what’s going on, I don’t know.
I’m also really nervous about going back to work and doing document formatting, which basically means I’m doing short keys and mouse clicks for anywhere from 4 to 8 hours a day.
And yeah, that doesn’t sound like much fun right now.
My doctor has me going back on September 1st.
I’m hoping that I’ll be OK to do that.
I’m hoping my work will be OK with giving me a little bit more leeway in getting my stuff done. I have no idea what’s going to happen and it’s kind of scary.
Right now, I am concentrating on the things that I can control.
Those being slowly, carefully, roasting coffee for Ottawa Comic Con. It’s going to be the first convention, that’s going to be in September, the first convention that we actually get to sell at since COVID started and I’m terrified.
Not only because I’ve heard so many stories of people getting sick at Montreal Comic Con and other conventions, but also because I have no idea if roasting and preparing for a month… Like, so much stock is going to be sold, or if we’re going to leave with a negative… I’m just hoping to make back our table.
That’s my basic goal.
We’ll see; and I guess my other big goal is not to get sick. On that front, Pegasus has gotten his first shot at the end of July. We’re hoping to get the next one by the end of August, early September, so that he’s covered when we go to Comic Con.
He’s not coming with us, but if we’re going to bring anything back, which is always a possibility, I don’t want him to catch this thing after 2 1/2 years! Gah.
So back to the health stuff.
My doctor gets back on Tuesday, which is tomorrow when you guys are watching this, and hopefully he’ll have some sort of diagnosis for me or another series of tests, which I have a feeling I’m going to be doing a lot of those in the future, which sucks.
And I really miss typing.
It’s my stress relief. Even like just basic typing is my stress relief.
I was really enjoying the stress relief of playing ukulele, but I… I’ve barely touched it.
Although I did dust, literally dust, the ukulele the other day just because it looked sad.
All that to say that I am nervous but I’m getting better and I am trying to prepare for Comic Con, so hopefully my doctor will be able to fix things, and my physio will help me fix things and I can get back to writing novels.
