Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Medical Leave
So, things have been a little quite on the firefighting update front, and there's a good reason for that! Perhaps I should explain here..
My last post was about hover exit training, but what I didn't mention is that I nearly missed out on that altogether. The night before, I was struck by intense pain in my lower back and right hip resulting in poor sleep and a lot of difficulty doing things like getting out of bed and putting on my shoes. I decided to go ahead with hover exit training despite the pain since I didn't want to miss it and I don't think it made things any worse.
Despite seeing some doctors and physios and such that weekend and in the following week, things didn't get much better so the decision was made that I would need to go on medical leave. The rest of my team spent last week doing chainsaw training, and I didn't feel capable of participating due to muscle strain.
Instead of firefighting, I have spent the last week and a half learning what's involved in submitting a WCB claim (and I just found out mine was approved). I've also been taking advantage of the time off to visit friends in Vancouver and family and goats and so on on the island.
The back is slowly healing.. I no longer need to brace myself too much for such activities as lying down/standing up/standing on my right leg/sneezing/etc. I am starting to incorporate some strength-building exercises into my stretching/physio routine. I hope to go back to work within a couple of weeks now. The tough part is that I will have to pass the WFX-Fit test that I did to get into bootcamp to prove that I am fit for work again. It will be interesting to see how it goes the second time around (it was pretty tough on the first go and I was only 20 seconds short of the 14min30sec cutoff time).
I hear that there has been a little bit of activity up at the base - last I spoke to my team, one of the crews was out looking for a reported smoke resulting from a lightning strike. Hopefully I will be back in business by the time fire activity starts in earnest.
My last post was about hover exit training, but what I didn't mention is that I nearly missed out on that altogether. The night before, I was struck by intense pain in my lower back and right hip resulting in poor sleep and a lot of difficulty doing things like getting out of bed and putting on my shoes. I decided to go ahead with hover exit training despite the pain since I didn't want to miss it and I don't think it made things any worse.
Despite seeing some doctors and physios and such that weekend and in the following week, things didn't get much better so the decision was made that I would need to go on medical leave. The rest of my team spent last week doing chainsaw training, and I didn't feel capable of participating due to muscle strain.
Instead of firefighting, I have spent the last week and a half learning what's involved in submitting a WCB claim (and I just found out mine was approved). I've also been taking advantage of the time off to visit friends in Vancouver and family and goats and so on on the island.
The back is slowly healing.. I no longer need to brace myself too much for such activities as lying down/standing up/standing on my right leg/sneezing/etc. I am starting to incorporate some strength-building exercises into my stretching/physio routine. I hope to go back to work within a couple of weeks now. The tough part is that I will have to pass the WFX-Fit test that I did to get into bootcamp to prove that I am fit for work again. It will be interesting to see how it goes the second time around (it was pretty tough on the first go and I was only 20 seconds short of the 14min30sec cutoff time).
I hear that there has been a little bit of activity up at the base - last I spoke to my team, one of the crews was out looking for a reported smoke resulting from a lightning strike. Hopefully I will be back in business by the time fire activity starts in earnest.
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