Doing What I Can

Yesterday the vancomycin trough came back high. Which in turn make infectious disease stop all IV antibiotics.

I told them that the blood draw was done 3 hours too soon, but they didn’t want to listen to me.

So I’ve had to go without the antibiotic that’s been keeping me alive for 24 hours.

Last night, my fever hit 102F.

I returned to work yesterday. HR was kind enough to allow me to work from home until 2/1, which is much needed. The waves of exhaustion hit me at around 2, and I just needed to lay down. I got up at 4, then fell back asleep from 5 until 7.

I saw Dr. Hepworth yesterday too. I printed out the last month’s worth of labs and showed him that my WBC and CRP continue to climb. My face continues to hurt. I’m bleeding from my sinuses constantly. The fevers won’t stop.

So he agreed to call Dr Kaufman directly to discuss the next step. It’s called Indium-111 Tagged WBC scan. They draw a considerable amount of blood from you, spin apart the red from the white blood cells. Then they take the white blood cells and make them radioactive. This is a nuclear scan, and yes, I’ll be radioactive for at least 24 hours. This scan is specifically used for infectious and inflammatory diseases, leukemia and lymphoma, and bone marrow disorders. The hole is to get my face to light up. Dr Hepworth notes that the lump on the left side of my face looks bigger, as well as the two lumps in my chin. Everything is inflamed, including my sinuses, so I am just fucking miserable.

This morning I woke up to the usual “you got paid” email I get from Chime, and opened my account. To my surprise I noticed it was MUCH less than normal. Like $3000 less than normal. I freaked out. Panicked, I logged into Sedgwick and noticed that they never changed the dates of the STD claim. They still showed that my STD had ended 1/2. This is after I communicated to them as the end of December that we need to push my return out to 1/16. You’d think that they would do their job and just update that field.

They didn’t.

They didn’t process the extension paperwork I sent to them on 1/10/2024 that Dr Courtney filled out. I verified that they had the paperwork, and directly asked the rep why my dates were not adjusted when asked, and secondly, why was my extension paperwork NOT processed. This isn’t the first time this has happened. This happened in the beginning when they opened an FMLA (job protection) claim for the heart attack, they should have opened a sister claim for STD (getting laid while out) part.

So when my first leave check was supposed to come, I got nothing. I had to get HR involved to fix the problem. But I had to wait a week to get my paycheck. So here we are again, $3,000 short with rent and 2 loans due. My blood pressure at this point was at 170/140, and my HR averaged 159.

I wrote another email to HR explaining the situation and my overall disgust with Sedgwick and about how this isn’t the first time. Gave them the screen shots of the documentation, the wrong dates they had, and proof of the STD extension paperwork. Because Sedgwick LOVES to use the excuse “we never got anything”. When I attached the paperwork I told her it’s there and to please update my STD dates from 11/27/2023 to 1/2/2024, to 11/27/2024 to 1/15/2024. Her response was we will get this updated in 3 business days. Dr. Courtney filled out both the STD extension paperwork, and the ADA request on 1/10/2024. The ADA paperwork was immediately approved, but the STD portion, you guessed it, nothing was done.

I’m sick and fucking tired of people not doing their jobs. Because now I have to figure out how the fuck am I gonna pay for the 2 loans that come out on the 20th, and pay rent.

Thank god our apartment complex accepts credit cards. So I’ll be ok, but this problem will become a real problem in 2 weeks. I have no savings left. I’ve got nothing left. I transferred what I could, but Jesus fucking Christ, I shouldn’t have to be doing this. As this went on, I could feel the panic attack coming. My chest immediately tells me when they are happening. My cardiologist told me that my BPM should never go above 100 BPM at rest, and my blood pressure should also never go above 130/90.

So here we are.

Panic attack. My chest hurt. My body just stressed to the max after learning all this. I took 1/5 10mg Valium IV pushes to immediately calm down. I sent the emails to HR, and just went into complete meltdown mode. I can’t stop crying because of all this undue stress Sedgwick continues to cause. I’m doing my part, they aren’t.

I had to move us out of a hazardous environment, the one credit card I paid off from the GoFundMe proceeds that was carrying medical debt. Was at a $0 balance, but due to Sedgwick being Sedgwick, I’ve now had to put 2 rent payments on it, plus the $900 for the move, and the $3,000 for furniture replacement. So now the balance of that card is $9500. In just 1 month. So guess where my bonus is going? Instead of paying off the second credit card that’s carrying the medical debt, I have to pay off the laziness of Sedgwick, and the fallout from having to move.

The attorney emailed me yesterday saying that Parc was supposedly was sending us something, our ledger now shows a $0 balance, but no check. No nothing. Thank god yesterday the “missing” refund from Klarisana came, but that $900 is going to be used to keep us afloat.

I’m going to go to infectious disease to re-draw my vancomycin trough, come home, take another 5mg of Valium and go to sleep.

I’m over my limit of shit to deal with for today, and it’s not even 9am.

I’m tired of all this. This has gotten way too old. I just need to financially survive till I get a bonus (whatever amount that is).

This is so unnecessary. If people would just do their fucking jobs, his could’ve been all avoided. But again, nobody takes any ownership, pride, or accountability anymore. And I always get to be the one to pay the price for it.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.