TheMailMan
TGT Addict
I broke my back while in the Marines. I've had back issues since I was 19. Everything was manageable till the mid '00's. I was a City Letter Carrier on a walking route that was 10 miles per day and up and down over 4,000 steps. Early in my career with USPS I worked a ton of OT. I was walking an average of 15 miles per day and multiple thousands of steps up and down and doing it 6 days a week.
Come the mid '00's the wear and tear on my body became noticeable. I had to start taking pain meds and other medications to treat the nerve pain in my legs. Working OT came to a halt. It's a degenerative condition in my back and it continued to get worse. In June of 2012 I had a major change in my back. I had been taking Tramadol, and now was on oxycodone. After three weeks of time off and daily PT I went back to work. I managed to work for about two weeks. During that time I only worked a few complete days. I came to realize that my days working were coming to an end.
I had filed for an increase in my VA rating in 2011, I received that decision in June of 2012. I went from 30% to 70%.
Not being able to continue with USPS I filed for another increase in my disability rating since things were worse in July of 2012 than they were in January of 2011. I also filed for an OPM disability retirement. Part of that process was filing for Social Security Disability.
To my complete shock I was approved for SSDI in 14 days with no exam. They approved my case the day after they received my VA medical records. I had a great doctor at the VA who had well documented my decline. When I went to see him after I decided I could no longer work for the USPS he smiled at me and told me he knew that six months earlier. It was in his notes that I wouldn't last through the year.
So I take his advice and retire, he told me to enjoy life as the back was never getting better and would get worse. After a delay due to prostate cancer my wife and I moved to Texas.
Shortly after moving to Texas my VA doctor here switched me from oxycodone, which I hated, to time release morphine. Life was as fucking good as it could be. I was active, able to go fishing once a week, and go shooting 1-2 times a week. My back continued to worsen.
I will note that both in Portland and here in Texas that the VA also sent me to outside specialists for my back. Everyone told me surgery was not an option because it wouldn't make things better and could easily make things worse. Knowing people who had had multiple back surgeries I felt this was good advice.
Then, due to all the fucking people abusing opioids the VA made a decision to stop the use of them. Like millions of other Veterans, I had come to rely on them to give us some quality of life.
So now I had to go find a doctor that would prescribe the meds I needed. Right now, I'm with Spine Team Texas and have nothing but love for them, except they won't allow me to take my CBD supplements.
I'm stuck paying almost $100 a month to get the pills I need to keep life bearable. Of course the war on opiates is a complete failure and the one's paying the price are those who actually need them and don't abuse them.
Anyway, rant over and back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Come the mid '00's the wear and tear on my body became noticeable. I had to start taking pain meds and other medications to treat the nerve pain in my legs. Working OT came to a halt. It's a degenerative condition in my back and it continued to get worse. In June of 2012 I had a major change in my back. I had been taking Tramadol, and now was on oxycodone. After three weeks of time off and daily PT I went back to work. I managed to work for about two weeks. During that time I only worked a few complete days. I came to realize that my days working were coming to an end.
I had filed for an increase in my VA rating in 2011, I received that decision in June of 2012. I went from 30% to 70%.
Not being able to continue with USPS I filed for another increase in my disability rating since things were worse in July of 2012 than they were in January of 2011. I also filed for an OPM disability retirement. Part of that process was filing for Social Security Disability.
To my complete shock I was approved for SSDI in 14 days with no exam. They approved my case the day after they received my VA medical records. I had a great doctor at the VA who had well documented my decline. When I went to see him after I decided I could no longer work for the USPS he smiled at me and told me he knew that six months earlier. It was in his notes that I wouldn't last through the year.
So I take his advice and retire, he told me to enjoy life as the back was never getting better and would get worse. After a delay due to prostate cancer my wife and I moved to Texas.
Shortly after moving to Texas my VA doctor here switched me from oxycodone, which I hated, to time release morphine. Life was as fucking good as it could be. I was active, able to go fishing once a week, and go shooting 1-2 times a week. My back continued to worsen.
I will note that both in Portland and here in Texas that the VA also sent me to outside specialists for my back. Everyone told me surgery was not an option because it wouldn't make things better and could easily make things worse. Knowing people who had had multiple back surgeries I felt this was good advice.
Then, due to all the fucking people abusing opioids the VA made a decision to stop the use of them. Like millions of other Veterans, I had come to rely on them to give us some quality of life.
So now I had to go find a doctor that would prescribe the meds I needed. Right now, I'm with Spine Team Texas and have nothing but love for them, except they won't allow me to take my CBD supplements.
I'm stuck paying almost $100 a month to get the pills I need to keep life bearable. Of course the war on opiates is a complete failure and the one's paying the price are those who actually need them and don't abuse them.
Anyway, rant over and back to our regularly scheduled programming.
