Fell while pregnant
Hi, so I work for a federal contractor for DOE. I work as a janitor at a nuclear site. I fell while pregnant at work, the on site clinic released me to work with no restrictions. I saw the ER doctor the following day and was initially diagnosed with a lumbar strain. They were not able to do imaging aside from an ultrasound due to the pregnancy. I have been doing physical therapy for months and am coming up on almost a year from the fall and was barely able to get them to do a MRI after an EMG showed radiculopathy off my S1 nerve. The MRI showed I have a herniated disc. After the EMG and MRI they suddenly scheduled an IME. I brought union representation but my question is should I get a lawyer? Everyone is telling me to wait to see what the MRI doctor but at this point I’m so pissed off with how my whole case was handled at one of the most vulnerable points in a woman’s life and now I have a life long injury. I also don’t trust the IME doctor, once they found out I had a union rep with me they tried as hard as they could not to let her back into the exam room with me despite me already getting permission to record the appointment. So far I’m still receiving all my benefits and they have even approved my continued PT. I’m not sure how this whole system works.