The Financial Burden
Workers compensation wouldn’t cover 30% because they met the state minimum. I lost all of that while I was out, still paying all of my medical and retirement plans out of pocket (post-tax). I’ve had to rely on family, friends and fundraisers I’ve done on Facebook to help cover the cost of physical therapy. Workers comp is only covering one hour of physical therapy once a week. In that time, you can’t get anything done, let alone make progress. I found a private Nero rehab gym called REACT in Addison who does two-hour PT sessions, but it cost me $200.00 out of pocket. This is by far the best rehab I have gotten to date, and I have made so much more progress with this gym’s help. They covered me under a sponsorship program but that only lasted eight weeks. Since then, I have relied on just doing personal fundraisers, but I can only ask the same group of people for so much.
This has also greatly affected my mental and emotional health. While I was trying to recover and get better, I had this extra stress to support my family when I was at my weakest and couldn’t. That will crush a person. I chose to support my family over my own therapy or health. Although I was in a lot of pain, I sucked it up for them - no one else. I did what I had to do. I think it probably played an effect on my long-term recovery, and it will probably take me longer to bounce back from this.