Hey everyone,

My name is Norris Scott. This is a bit of a long read so I apologize in advance, but I desperately need help. I truly appreciate anyone taking the time to read everything I've written below, and if there's any amount that you can offer to help I really can't thank you enough. I'm sorry to even have to ask, and I completely understand if anyone wants to help but isn't able to - I just know I need to at least try and reach out, at this point I'm running out of time.

In late September of last year, I was injured during a business trip to Salt Lake City. At the time it seemed like a minor neck sprain and I didn't think anything about it, but by October 4th the pain had gotten so unbearable that I was having panic attacks and nearly passed out. We wound up going to the emergency room that night, where they took x-rays that didn't reveal anything at the time and gave me medications that barely did anything to help with the pain. I was released with a note for work, and started trying to schedule appointments with local doctor's offices the following day.

The pain was so bad that I barely got more than an hour of sleep before it would wake me up. I couldn't move my left arm without feeling sharp pain shoot down my neck, through my shoulder, down my arm and into my fingertips. I could barely even turn my head without causing myself excruciating pain. It took a little over a month of doctor's office visits, a second emergency room visit, and multiple x-rays and MRIs before we finally found out what was going on - the source of my pain was multiple herniated discs in my neck, apparently C4-6. From there, I was referred to a pain management doctor and was scheduled for set of 'cervical spine epidural' procedures in mid-December.

During the entire ordeal with my injury I was having to contend with my employer and their combative process surrounding medical leave. Early on I ran into issues with my boss and his 'professionally threatening' language regarding certain aspects of my leave, received letters in the mail demanding payment for benefits that were supposed to have been covered under the short-term disability process, and even received another letter demanding repayment of an "overpayment" in the last paycheck I received before my leave. After looking into that claim in particular, I was thankfully able to prove that they were mistaken and have that retracted. Even so, I still also had to deal with the absence management company my employer used for handling medical leave cases - and they were challenging whether my injury even merited short-term disability coverage.

It took them almost a month and a half before they finally approved my coverage request, and even then I didn't see the money until roughly the end of November - two full months after I'd started my medical leave process.

Prior to my procedures, I was initially cleared to return to work on light-duty at the start of December; however, my boss challenged the terms of my light duty. The denial letter I received - almost a full week after I was supposed to have started back - claimed it was due to my "inability to drive for work". This was false, as the light-duty letter limited sitting/standing to no more than 30 minutes. The issue was that I live more than 30 minutes from our office so I'd have to work from home, and that was something my boss was, allegedly, notoriously against. When I challenged the denial however, he claimed they were mistaken and that the denial was because the letter didn't include an expected date for when I'd return to work on full-duty.

So after that bit of back-and-forth, I was provided a revised light-duty letter to give to them with the timeline. They took another week to review it, before I was finally told that my light-duty was accepted and I could connect with my boss on a return-to-work date. It was now half-way through December, and I was finally talking over my return to work with him - something that was supposed to have happened at the start of the month.

I reviewed the dates for my upcoming procedures with him, reviewed my physical therapy schedule, and reaffirmed what limitations I had with my work. We went back and forth over the nature of the accommodations - he tried to claim he could have me drive 30 minutes to the office, pull over and wait outside my vehicle for 30 minutes, and then finish the rest of the drive to come in - and I ultimately fought back and threatened to go to HR over the matter if he continued to push it. He dropped the issue, and after reviewing my surgical dates and the upcoming holidays decided to have me come back to work officially on December 30th.

I lost a full month of work to my employer dragging their feet and debating over my accommodations. I tried filing for short-term disability for December given the circumstances, but it was ultimately denied because I "was approved to return to work on light-duty at the start of the month". Apparently, that alone was enough to deny me coverage despite my employer rejecting the initial light-duty accommodation request.

I had the option to appeal the denial, but it would take up to 45 days to review. Even if I won the appeal, it would take up to another 28 days before I'd even get paid the coverage for December. Ultimately, because of the financial hardship we were going through at the time, it was faster and easier to just cash in my remaining PTO for the year. I'd already completely drained my 401K, had borrowed from family, and had sold several of my possessions on eBay to cover all the co-pays from doctor's visits and physical therapy, plus surgical costs and our normal monthly bills like rent and utilities.

From December 30th through the end of March, I was working from home on light-duty while still trying to recover. Given the nature of my job, however, I only wound up aggravating my injury further.

About my job: I'm an operations manager for 2 teams of technicians - one in Las Vegas, the other in Salt Lake City. My technicians start their work-days at 7AM, so for me I have to start at least 15 minutes beforehand. Since my Salt Lake City team is an hour ahead of me, that means my work-days start roughly between 5:45AM and 6AM. That start-time never changes, but how long I work each day does: I'm working until the last of my technicians are finished in the field, and/or I've completed everything needed to be done for the day. Some days that's by around 5PM, other days it could be as late as 9PM.

Additionally, team managers are on a rotating 6-day work week - meaning there are weeks where, rather than Monday-Friday, the work-week is Monday-Saturday. This is so that other managers can have Saturdays off, but that doesn't matter much when area leadership calls for a 'mandatory 6-day week' which requires everyone to work the full 6 days regardless of rotation. It especially doesn't matter when they call for one 3 out of 4 straight weeks, "for the needs of the business".

This came to a head towards the end of February, when our boss did exactly that - without consulting the rotation. This resulted in me working a month straight of 6-day work weeks which, even with my following light-duty guidelines, still resulted in extreme burn-out and aggravating my injury further. When I'd had the procedures done in December my pain levels had become manageable, to the point that I almost didn't notice the pain at all some days. Starting back on light-duty, my pain levels gradually worsened over the weeks due to my workload until, after the 4 straight 6-day work weeks, they were back to where they'd been before the procedures were done.

I was pushed past the point of breaking, and both my physical therapist and my orthopedic doctor could see it in their evaluations. The decision was made for me to be put back on medical leave for at least another 3 months, citing my steadily increasing levels of pain, long work hours and lack of rest. My procedure in December was only meant to give my body more time to heal without pain - it hadn't fixed the injury - and I was not capable of giving my body that time with everything work had me doing.

I still tried to 'do the right thing'. They made their recommendation in mid-March, and I requested to be allowed to finish out the month at work before starting the leave so I could at least prepare my team for my departure and finish out the quarter of business. They amended the recommendation for March 31st, and I made arrangements with the managers that would be covering my team while I was away.

Shortly after the start of my leave I underwent a procedure for a 'medial branch block', which was meant to test whether I'd be a good candidate for a more complex 'nerve ablation' procedure. Unfortunately it didn't work out for me - the procedure didn't decrease my pain levels at all - which meant that my only remaining options were to either get another set of cervical spine epidurals, undergo disc replacement surgery, disc fusion surgery, or simply live with the pain for the rest of my life. I took all of this information - plus all other documents from my doctors and physical therapist - and uploaded it to the portal for the company handling my medical leave of absence. I was already approved for ADA Accommodation, and had also filed for short-term disability.

Despite keeping up with everything, and having ample proof and documentation to show the necessity of my disability claim, they still fought me on the short-term disability claim. They spent weeks reviewing things before they challenged the validity of the medical certification from my physical therapist as she wasn't a doctor, so I provided them another medical certification from my orthopedic doctor basically concurring with their assessments. They then took more time to review everything, before deciding to deny my claim at the end of May.

They claimed I didn't provide evidence of escalated treatment other than physical therapy, despite me giving them documentation showing my scheduled procedures, their follow-up notes, and even my doctor's notes in the medical certification showing that we were considering other procedures as well as surgical options. They claimed my diagnosis was only for "chronic neck pain", despite the fact that my doctor clearly stated in their medical certification that I was suffering from herniated discs - something that was also backed up by MRI scans they'd already been provided as well. They claimed none of the documentation provided indicated the severity of my symptoms would cause a disabling condition, despite my doctor's certification spelling out in clear language that my pain levels and injury prevented me from the specific activities my work required.

It came across like whomever it was that was supposed to have examined my claim didn't bother doing that at all, and just denied it outright.

So I responded to their email about my denial to formally inform them I was appealing it. They spent roughly 2 weeks reviewing my appeal... and then denied it for being 'past 60 days'. Turns out they used the wrong case number in the email they sent me, so my appeal was submitted for the medical leave I was denied back in December - despite everything else in their email clearly being in regards to my ongoing medical leave. They claimed there wasn't anything they could do about the mistake and that I'd have to re-file my appeal under the correct case number - which I didn't even have, and had to get them to provide to me.

As of last week, finally, my appeal was assigned to someone for the correct leave case. Still though, the appeals process itself can take up to 45 days, and even if I win it could take up to another 28 days before I even get the payments I'm fighting for here. My leave started March 31st, and I might not even see a single cent of coverage until sometime in August.

In the 3 months I was back on light-duty, I worked hard and earned bonuses that allowed me to nearly pay off one of the two emergency room bills, cover over a thousand dollars in co-pays, and start rebuilding my 401K and savings.

Since returning to medical leave, I've had to burn through those savings, empty my 401K again, sell more of my personal belongings, and borrow from family to get us through everything. Every $60 co-pay for my physical therapy appointments - 2 times per week. Every $60 co-pay for doctor's office visits to review my progress. Co-pays of several hundreds of dollars for my procedures. Medical bills still left largely unpaid from the start of everything. Emergency expenses hitting us out of nowhere, like vet bills and vehicle issues. All of that on top of our normal monthly bills and rent have absolutely destroyed us.

I now have almost $6,000 in medical debt and it's still growing.

I have no money left for anything at this point. Nothing for rent, utilities, insurance, vehicle payments, medical costs, groceries, emergency funds - nothing. I can't afford the $60 co-pays for my physical therapy, and have had to cancel the last three weeks of appointments because I literally haven't been able to come up with the money for them. I've got my next two cervical spine epidural procedures coming up and I have no idea how I'm going to be able to pay for them. My doctor is working with my insurance to see if we can get me approved for disc replacement surgery because nothing else has worked up until now, and I don't even know if I could afford the damned surgery even if I get approved for it.

I'm fighting to win my appeal to the best of my ability, and am selling more of my possessions on eBay to generate a little extra income in the meantime. Beyond all of that, I don't know what else to do except try and reach out for help from anyone who's able and willing to do so.

In addition to the near-$6,000 in medical debt, the two procedures I have coming up have co-pays that combined add to roughly $800. Our rent is $1,950. We have a car payment due this week for $515, and a registration renewal due next month of $220. I still have physical therapy appointments I need to start attending again as soon as possible, and those add to almost $500 per month. It's just become far too much for us to survive alone.

I've really, really tried to find a way to make things work through all of this. I did everything I could to keep all this from happening, and still held out hope that we'd have gotten my short-term disability coverage by now and wouldn't have to still be worrying about everything. Instead, we've now got a week until my next procedure, then another one the week after. We've got hundreds in bills due now we can't pay, and rent due in two weeks that I have no clue how we're going to cover - I'm hoping we'll qualify for public assistance there, but I have no idea if that's going to be an option for us or not.

I don't know what else I can do, and as much as it pains me to have to I'm here sincerely asking for whatever help anyone can give us to get us through this. I'm so sorry to just be popping in out of nowhere like this and dropping my whole life situation on everyone. I know everyone's going through hard times right now, so I swear I won't take offense in the slightest if you can't help right now - I appreciate you even just reading through all of this to begin with. If you don't mind at least sharing this with anyone who might be able to help - friends, family, co-workers - that would be enough. I just appreciate any and all help we get right now.

Thank you for taking the time to read through everything. I'm not sure what to expect from all of this, but I'm hopeful for the help. We certainly need it right now, and I'm grateful for every bit we receive.

Thank you again,

Norris