I was injured on March 28th 2003, late in the afternoon. I was carrying a box of manuals from the reception area to the storage room where I tripped over some carelessly placed empty boxes just outside of the storage room.

When I tripped I landed on the box I was carrying and my neck snapped forward and my right arm/shoulder hit the shelving unit on the right on my way down, there was immediate pain in my neck and behind my shoulder blade on my right side.

The accident happened on a Friday afternoon so my first thought was to just go home and rest and see what it would be like after the weekend. My office manager insisted that I file a WCB report right away and I agreed. The next day I went to see my doctor (my regular doctor was not in so I saw the doctor who was attending) who recommended I do not return to work for several weeks as he thought I had strained my right side neck and shoulder. What I didn’t know was that when he wrote his report he identified the left side.

WCB Problem 1:
It took 5 weeks to accept my claim. Instead of a phone call from my case worker, they immediately assumed that there was some fraud going on and they investigated. I had gone to see my actual doctor, Dr. Michelle Dray, within a few days of that first visit as the pain had worsened by that monday. She sent me for a neck X-ray to make sure nothing was broken, I guess I didn’t break my neck (unfortunately WCB would see that as a bit more serious than muscle tear or nerve damage). She reported that it was a good claim and that there was evidence of inflammation and swelling on my right side shoulder and neck. From that point on till WCB actually figured out that it was Doctor error (first doctor I saw) in his report and not fraud, they accepted my claim. At this point I was in panic mode not knowing how I was going to pay my bills. Since WCB had not accepted my claim, Specialists and Physio would not touch me as they did not know if WCB would pay up so I went untreated for 5 weeks while WCB tried their best to prove fraud. No such luck, now I was accepted and I was starting Physio.

the Physiotherapist tried several different types of treatments and started getting nervous as everything he tried made the pain worsen. He kept asking if I had a specialist report yet. Those by the way take many many weeks to arrange a first appointment for. I finally got in to see Dr. Cecil Caines who specializes in neck and shoulder injuries. His first guess was soft tissue damage and he called for traction. Back to physio with the order for traction, oh boy was that a bad move. Pain was by this time a lot more severe in both neck and shoulder, so after 2 weeks of this it’s back to specialist. At this time he decides that it is a neck injury and nothing to do with my shoulder. (not sure how he decided that) he did find a lump or swollen muscle or something under the edge of my shoulder blade but ignored it and went for an MRI of my neck, I did plead with him to look into the shoulder as well but he insisted it was a neck injury such as a herniated disk.

WCB Problem 2:
My case worker Sandra Michaels decided that even without the assigned specialist’s opinion, she would send me to the miracle cure center Columbia Rehab in Langley. Her reasoning was that it was the place for me to stay loose and not stiffen up. The first day I saw Doctor Struthers (I use the term doctor loosely as I see him as a salesman for Columbia Rehab Center and would not let him treat my dog) The interview was very painful and he insisted that it was a muscle problem in my neck and shoulder and that they could help me. I assured him that I was only there to stay loose till the specialist report was in. He shrugged it off. The next day I was in for my first day of the miracle cure. I lasted 20 minutes doing exercises I would never have expected which in turn caused severe shoulder girdle pain as well as numbness in my 2 middle fingers as well as pain running down my arm. I told the supposed supervisors who I thought would have a doctor take a look at me. Not in this place. My specialist saw me again shortly after this and he was shocked that WCB had sent me there at all, but said that I should only do bare minimum movements till MRI is back and he made a determination of the injury. As ordered by my specialist I told my caseworker about what happened and she said to just do bare minimum till the specialist had some results.

WCB and Rehab Problem 3:
6 weeks later after WCB spent some serious money on having me attend the Columbia rehab center (which was responsible for causing me serious pain which has not improved since that first day) just to walk the treadmill for 15 minutes and spend almost 2 hours with ice each day, The results from the MRI on the neck (not the shoulder) were in. The MRI showed some nerve damage which was conveniently explained as being and existing condition due to age . . . I am 42 years old and already I am deteriorating? It’s funny how I have never had any neck pain or stiffness trouble before the accident. Now Struthers decides that this one report is good enough for him and he said no injury was found so go back to work. I talked till I was blue in the face about the increase of pain in the shoulder and the numbness in my fingers to which he replied ‘I don’t know what caused that, perhaps another previous injury’ Now of course since the Rehab center was up for review just a week after this day, Mr. Struthers decided I can go back to work even though they caused further damage to my shoulder and he just shrugged it off with his regular un-knowing and un-caring manner. The one thing I have not mentioned is that Dr. Caines (specialist) referred me to another specialist and Struthers vetoed this. Where does he get off thinking he knows more than Dr. Caines?

To Date Last WCB Problem (for now):
I immediately went to see my doctor and she told me I was not ready to go back to work but WCB decided that Dr. Dray did not have a valid opinion in this matter and they told me to go back to work. I will update this page further as things progress. I do have an appeals process to go through, but I am not sure how I will survive till then. I could go back to work and lose my job for not making quota due to the inability to actually sit in front of a computer for more than 20 minutes at a time without several hours between with ice packs and bed rest. I wonder how Struthers would diagnose this condition if it was his pain?

So, here is my biggest complaint, it is my body which is injured and though I begged for the specialist and the so called doctor at the Columbia Rehab Center to take a closer look at the shoulder which is an obvious injury and is causing me unlivable pain. Why did WCB spend all this money on this so called Rehab Center when they should have been more concerned with finding the cause of the injury before they unilaterally decided on a cure. Am I wrong? By the way, it took me 3 days to compose this page as I could not spend any real time in front of the computer to do this all at once. And since a good portion of my job is communicating with my clients by emails which can be very long, it would take days to help one client and that being the case my $400,000.00 quota would be unattainable and I would be out of a job in a matter of days.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Your Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.