I got a call from my lawyers telling me that the car insurance company set up a mandatory appointment with an Orthopedic surgeon. I was told that they paid these doctors a couple thousand dollars to be “the middle man,” but in reality they are to be more partial sided with the insurance company. I thought once he had seen me and could see that I was honest, than the insurance company would be more helpful and understanding towards me. My lawyers cautioned me and told me that they ( the Insurance company and doctor) usually have talks before the report is submitted and if anything was in my favor, it would likely be left out. I thought that there was no way that this could be true and thought a doctor is a doctor and I’d use this opportunity to my advantage and hopefully get a solid lead to an answer.
The day came and I was as nervous as ever. Brandon and the girls were with me. We all waited in the waiting area and I paced the floors in anticipation. This bigger, older man dressed in a buttoned down dress shirt and dress pants walked by abruptly and then turned around and walked back. He said, “They aren’t coming in with you. It’s just me and you,” in a straight forward tone. My heart started to pound even more as my support system had just been ripped from me. I felt intimidated and even more nervous as ever. Brandon and the girls came and hugged me and prayed over me and then left.
I got called into this small examination room and was given a hospital gown to dress in. The Orthopedic surgeon came and did so many different tests and maneuvers and measurements. He got me to twist and rotate my upper body and that’s when my body went into an intense spasm. I tried so hard to breathe and be cool about it but it just started to pull and get stronger. I started to whip my body around in agony and hot tears started to roll down my cheeks. He tried to coach me and help the spasm to calm down but it just was unrelenting. He left the room for a few minutes and told me if I needed to walk around for a bit, I could. My body felt beaten up, achey and in pain all over from all of the testing. He then came back in the room and asked me a lot of the same questions that the car insurance lawyer had asked at my Discovery. I felt like I was in a mini interrogation again. Towards the end of the long, three hour appointment, I looked at him and said, “Is there any advice that you could give me or help me with? Do you know what’s wrong with me?” He went through his findings and then looked at me and said, “You’ve definitely got something going on in your low back. My advice to you would be, go back to that private clinic you went to and get them to do a diagnostic injection into your back and if they don’t find anything, keep pushing for another one and if they don't find anything still, get another one and another one until they find out what’s wrong with you.” I was grateful for his help and even more grateful that I had confirmation that I was on the right track. He didn’t know that I had my appointment already booked and ready to go for the diagnostic injection at that very clinic.
I excitedly called my lawyers and caught them up on how my appointment went. She told me “That’s great but I’m highly doubtful any of that will make it into his report. I guess we’ll just wait and see.”
Eventually my lawyers got the notes from this appointment and just like they said, none of the findings were in his report. This is when I knew that my honesty meant nothing, that this had nothing to do with truth and helping me. It was all about undermining, deception, lies and trying to save money on their part. All of this time I had fought to prove myself to the car insurance company, to show them that I wasn’t this fraud and it all was for nothing.
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