It's been a while

Maybe, things will be different this time.

...

As I write this, my 33rd birthday will be in a week. Since I last wrote, I turned 32. Actually, a lot has happened in the past fourteen months. Since I've been gone this long, maybe an update is in order.

First, I had lower back surgery on October 3rd of last year. It had been several months in coming, and due to insurance issues, was very nearly derailed (or at least delayed) before it could happen. For me, it marked both the first time I've been under the knife and the first time I've ever had a hospital stay.

Actually, it wasn't much of a stay. I packed enough stuff anticipating on overnight stay. I checked into the hospital at 5:00 am to be in surgery by 7:30, and I was released about 3:30 that afternoon. To save you doing the math, that ten and a half hours. Looking back, I was surprised that they didn't keep me longer, but I'm glad I didn't have to stay because I remember the hospital being very warm to the point of being stuffy. Also, for the brief time I was in a room before discharge, I became increasingly fidgety. I think once I became aware I was going home that day, I was anxious to be out of there.

I tried to go back to my old job at the printing company this past January, when my disability insurance ran out. The doctor signed out for me to go back with physical restrictions, as I was still in the recovery phase post-surgery. I called about returning to my job, when the HR director told me that they couldn't take me back. First, I had been away for so long that they were no longer legally required to keep my position open and they hired someone else. They said I was free to reapply if I wanted to, but they also said they couldn't accommodate the physical restrictions, claiming they would be a safety issue in the warehouse.

At the time, I was going to just leave things as they were, when my dad told me that since my injury was caused by my work environment, and because they wouldn't take me back, I should pursue a claim against the company. Admittedly, if Dad hadn't mentioned it, I might not have done it, since I hadn't even occurred to me until he brought it up.

With the help of a church elder, I was able to find a lawyer who was willing to take my case, when I wasn't even sure if I had a case to pursue. When I first went on disability, I had to mark in the application that my injury wasn't work-related since my injuries were affecting my leg more than my actual lower back (I ruptured a disc in my lower back that was affecting the nerves in my legs, where all my initial symptoms were). However, I decided to pursue the claim when my lawyer informed me that a work-related injury can be either caused by or exacerbated by work. if the lawyer had said there was nothing to my claim, I would've just let it go.

Since February, when I first went to a lawyer, I've been examined and received treatment from multiple doctors, including being put back on pain medication, and have been examined by the doctor whose report will actually be used in ruling on my case. I don't know when I will have to go to court, but I'm aware that I will have to give my testimony at some point. My primary doctor says workers' comp seems to be seeking an unusually fast resolution to my claim, so things could happen at any time. I'll give an update when that happens.

Throughout all this, since the beginning of the year, I have been looking for a new job. I actually had a job for a short while throughout the month of March of this year. I was a data collector for a survey company here in the San Fernando Valley. It might've been a good (or least, decent) job if I had been any good at it.

My job was to cold-call businesses and try to get whoever answered the phone to complete surveys on behalf of our clients. People hate getting these calls at home; imagine being asked to do that while you're at work. In order to do my job the way my bosses wanted it done, I was basically asking a total stranger to put aside their work on their company's time. As you could imagine, I wasn't very successful. In a five to six-hour shift, I could easily clear over a hundred calls, pretty much because I could never keep anyone on the phone.

The job was easily the most lax work environment I've ever had. It was the sort of job that seemed to have a lot of turnover; It never came close to being full-time work (unless you were a supervisor) and since we never actually sold anything, there were no bonuses. Also, when I was hired, I was told that there would be periods where work would drop off so there would be times where they wouldn't be needing me to come in. So in my time there, I never worked an eight-hour shift and I never worked a full week, which was fine, at first.

After being with the company about a month, and I wasn't really getting any better at the work, my manager called me at home. She said that her bosses had told her that she "needed to cut her numbers", so they didn't need me for the time being. They would probably call me back at some point when they needed more people. At the time, I didn't think much of it because I remembered what I was told about those periods when I was hired.

A week went by. Then, two weeks. Then, a month.

I think it was a month and half later that I realized that I had been fired. Now, the word "fired" was never used, but when I see the same Craigslist ad that I responded to being re-posted after I'm not called back, I put two and two together. Naively, it did not occur to me any sooner that I had simply been let go. A lot of things seem not to occur to me as quickly as they should.

...

Over the summer, I finally got back into a weekly Bible study. I hadn't been a part since probably before the last time this blog was updated. I needed to be engaging with my brothers and sisters again. since I suffering spiritually from the lack of regular fellowship. The Bible that believers not to forsake the gathering of the brethren (Hebrews 10:25), but to paraphrase the same verse, it had become a habit of mine, one I needed to break.

It takes real effort for me to engage with other people, being of a reclining nature. For a while, it seemed like it had become easier for me to reach out to others, but then, I let that behavior lie fallow, and it seemed like all that time and learning just evaporated. In the end, I pray to keep reaching out and being available to minister as much as I am able.

Oftentimes, I will pray if that's all I can do for someone or their situation, that God would have His guiding hand over that situation. If I think there's something I can do, I pray that God would open that opportunity where I might be able to help. 

...

Well, I've been going on long enough. I want this to be posted before midnight, and I can feel my last dose of pain meds beginning to take effect, so I'll be going to bed soon.

Maybe, hopefully, I'll hang with this blog again. Maybe, unlike last year, there won't be just one post in 2017.