Finances & Money

Rehab, MRIs, and A Job Update

Since my contract at work abruptly ended on the 14th, I figured I would have written a slew of awesome articles in the extra free time I was given. Unfortunately that’s not the case. If you’ve been following for the last week, I‘ve been in a lot of pain from a diagnosed herniated disk since getting a deep tissue massage last Tuesday. I added “diagnosed” because I’ve only gotten an x-ray so far, and those aren’t the best at determining the cause of back pain.

Over the holiday, the pain got increasingly worse to the point where I had to lay on the floor to unwrap gifts or pretty much do anything. I’ve been relying on pain meds much more than I wanted to, but I’m still not worried about getting addicted like House M.D. It got so bad that I was able to get in to see my orthopedist yesterday to figure out a new plan.

New Recovery Plan

Yesterday, the doc prescribed a few new things. The first is an MRI. The second is more pain meds (woohoo!) as I only had enough for about 2-3 more days. Lastly, he prescribed me steroids for the inflammation, as the current ones obviously aren’t doing the job.

I rushed down to the MRI office to see whether they could get me in that day, but unfortunately I have to wait until Monday. As you may know by now, our medical plan currently covers costs with just a small copay, but in the new year, we pay a deductible and 10% of the cost up to an out-of-pocket maximum. December 31st is really cutting it close! Luckily we’ll get this pricey procedure performed under the current, more generous plan. Whew!

Rehabilitation

I went to my first session this morning, which took about 2.5 hours. There was only one therapist and up to 5 patients at one time, which is why it took so long. We mostly did stretching, diagnosing, and icing, with some electrodes thrown in at the end. The therapist isn’t confident that it’s a herniated disk because she found so much muscle tension, but she’s going to wait for the MRI to be sure. On that note, the next rehab appt is Monday afternoon, after the MRI. I’m not going to be a happy person Monday with being confined in a tube for an hour and then stretched into painful positions for another two.

Job Status

As I mentioned before, I’ve been on company overhead since the contract ended, except for this past Monday which I took as vacation. I learned from my new boss today that I probably won’t start on the new contract until Jan 7th, due to the security clearance delays. My old boss had requested that I use more PTO until I start. I have a little over 3 weeks of vacation saved up (I just don’t take time off), but I don’t want to be forced to use it. I’m using 4 days through the end of this year already due to my back and not being comfortable going into the office.

So, I asked my new boss if he could find productive work for me starting Jan 2nd, such as writing proposals (I know they need the help). I have yet to hear back from him, but I plan on going into corporate HQ starting Wednesday and charging to overhead for the time I’m there, even though I don’t even have a desk.

I’d say more, but I’ll just indicate that I have some other feelers out there for other work, but that it requires a much bigger decision that I can’t make alone. Also, I know some of my fellow employees read this site, so I don’t want to say more. It’s not something that will happen quickly, but it would be a major life event if it did. More on this later, if something actually happens (sorry about the secrecy).

Next Steps

With regards to this site, I expect to mainly do some year-end wrap-ups, reviews and analysis over the next few days, as well as map out some plans for 2008, as soon as I make them up. I’ve just ended what I’ll consider my “first real year”, since in 2006 I only wrote a few articles, garnered a few readers but didn’t make any money until 2007.

Look for posts like most referrals, most popular articles, traffic and earnings (maybe) and some of our own financial information like our budget vs actual amounts for the year, etc. It’ll be real exciting stuff! Just wait, you’ll see!