I had a follow-up ortho appointment this morning for my ankle injury from MN. It’s healing nicely and I was given doctor approval to quit using crutches although I still need to wear that damn boot for another 4 weeks. While I was there, I asked the doctor if I should be doing some type of exercise at home since the ankle has been immobile for so long. He looks at me like I’d just grown a third eye and was amazed that nobody has addressed physical rehab yet. So, he writes a scrip for the nurse case manager to find me a physical therapist. The actual order was for range of motion, general strengthening, and proprioceptive exercises. Huh? I looked up proprioceptive at home and it means balance. This must be why our health care system is so expensive, all that time spent in a thesaurus looking for $5 words.

On the brighter side, I’m actually doing better financially because of the injury. Since I had another job lined up immediately following the harvest, Express Employment agreed to pay me lost wages. Not knowing how that worked exactly, I sent a spreadsheet of my Amazon wages from last year to the claims management company. Well, it turns out they didn’t need that. They need to base my payments on my average weekly wage where the accident occurred. Since my hourly wage was significantly higher at the sugar beet harvest, I’ll actually receive more in temporary total disability than if I’d been picking on schedule for Amazon. And it’s tax free! So, I certainly would NOT have chosen a broken ankle to get out of work but it seems to have worked out well.