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My Story |
This site is the greatest! I was sorry to find that the forums had to be closed, largely due to a maniacal judge named Treadway.
I consider my pain conditions to be minor in comparison to what most others here are having to endure, and have had reasonably good pain control for the last 2 years. I was a rural mail carrier (mostly substitute) since 1989 when job-related injuries forced me to stop work in 2004. The post office attempted to force me back to work at an office 50 miles from my home in 2006, but my doctor ordered me to stop. Benefits were then denied, but reinstated after 9 months when a hearing was held. Do I really need to tell you how corrupt the postal service is?
I’ve been wrangling with OWCP Dept. of Labor Workers’ Comp since then & recently was able to see Dr. John Ellis in Oklahoma City, who is the only “medical OWCP specialist” I know of in the country. I recommend him for *anybody* dealing with the (very crooked) Dept. of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Program, or with any other workers’ comp problem.
I also had breast cancer in 1999, with lumpectomy and a rather extreme axillary node dissection (I reckon the surgeon was scared he’d miss some), which led to widespread cellulitis and eventually to lymphedema. That is very-well controlled now and I’m cancer-free for over ten years now, thank God!
The work injuries are bilateral epichondylitis, bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome (right-side surgery led to thoracic outlet- and complex pain syndromes in 2005), right shoulder nerve impingement, degenerative disc disease (exaccerbated by job) and herniated disc, L5 with right-leg radiculopathy. Kind of a hodge-podge of problems, huh? One way I’m fortunate: OWCP “FECA” rules require them to accept any condition that is exaccerbated or accelerated because of the job. Many state W.C. programs aren’t that generous.
I began having legal problems almost 2 years ago after a clerk in a store I was in called 911 to report a “possible drunk driver”. The cop zoomed up behind me, scaring me into pulling to the side (unmarked car, I thought it was a crazy kid wanting to pass), and then stopped me “for crossing the line.” After that it was all downhill. He never would have had a reason to stop me, nor would have even noticed me, had that clerk not called in to send him off looking for me. I’ve driven for years while taking meds (after being told by the dr. that it was fine as long as I wasn’t mentally impaired), had never been stopped, and I would not drive if I didn’t feel sharp! I hadn’t even taken any pain meds that day, but I was exhausted and grieving my father’s recent death, so I looked like a pile crud with bloodshot eyes, if you can picture that. I later found out that they thought I was “slurring” my speech. In reality I had just had a dental “flipper” fitted while waiting for a bridge, and simply couldn’t talk well with it. Sheesh. It was more like a lisp; certainly not “slurring”. They had so much to “hold against” me, which I made worse simply by cooperating with them. I later found out that in Oregon it’s not required for them to do quantitative tests on blood or u.i.’s, so meds that still had metabolites in my system from *days* earlier showed up, and apparently that’s all it takes in Oregon to convict somebody of impaired driving.
I’d like to see the laws changed to require the same kinds of quantitative testing as is done with alcohol, at the very least. Why is alcohol “OK” at 0.079 or below, but prescription meds supposedly cause “impairment” at any blood level? I now admit that I was probably not safe to drive that day simply because of the previously mentioned reasons (exhaustion & grief), in addition to being in pain, and am a SAFER driver when I take my medicines regularly. The worst thing is trying to drive while distracted by pain.
Advice to any of my friends who take opioids for chronic pain is to NEVER agree to bogus “sobriety tests” or blood/urine tests. You are not required to do them, but I was scared to death and honestly didn’t know better. If you “pass” their breathylizer test, they will automatically tell you that you need to submit to other tests, but you don’t!
Because they will say you’re impaired whether you are or not, “just say NO!” You may ask, “do cops lie?” I now know that many do only when their lips are moving. I was the most naive 53-yr-old driver with no prior “record” at all when it came to the police. It should mean something that I have driven so many years, even for a time while still a mail carrier, while taking pain medicines, with not so much as a scratch, much less an accident or a ticket, and yet nobody ever noticed a loopy driver before. I still do drive while “under the influence”, because now I’m on Fentanyl patches. I now know better than to drive when my pain *isn’t* under control, and I also know that they did indeed mean me when they said, “never talk to a police officer without knowing your rights and even then, refuse to say anything without an attorney present.” No matter what the truth is, I am now forever stigmatized as having a “DUI”.
God bless everybody here, and I pray we all find the relief we need to live productive and pain-free lives. |
