[Maria]

Judy,
I'm not a wise advisor however I don't really know if you should even be contemplating a return to work until you see how your surgery is going to turn out and so far it seems like you've been so busy that resting as necessary post your surgery may have slowed your progress down a bit.

Give it some time and revisit this thought. For now you have quite a bit on your plate to contemplate and if you are continuing to pursue your legal situation just plan on thinking about the income necessary to comfortably support you and your live at home children or those that are in college and whatever arrangements have been made regarding paying for that.

It sounds as though you're taking some kind of course work for medical coding/billing and I do know of people that do that from home however that's was usually after having been employed in medical office a number of years. In today's world who knows perhaps someone would rather not have to pay the office staff certain benefits or expenses re coming into an office so maybe working from home would be possible. I had a part time triage job from home once but didn't like it as it wasn't well enough set up program wise to cover everything that I thought needed to be covered in terms of my personal/professional liability giving advice. I was also a few years back offered a job in an insurance office to sell Disability policies. While I felt I could probably do that I would have needed a very modified work station at the time considering my neck concerns (then) and my low back (then more than now). I cannot stand a long time now because of my feet (bilateral posterior tibial tendonitis) and can't sit long periods due to my back tho better than I used to be. A very modified station might help that but then again I tend to compensate for my bad parts with less bad body parts which are becoming fewer and fewer!

Maybe if you can get a very part time job at some point when you're much better tho for now again I think you should cool your jets on that thought and think about what Jeff is going to give you/your family for support. 5 people.. wow.. that's a good size family!

Regarding driving and pain meds. As I mentioned in my other posts there are many meds both non narcotic and narcotic that carry a label warning with regard to operating heavy machinery while using the medication and/or causing dizziness/drowsiness.

Any medication carrying this warning that is in one's system can potentially be affecting one's mentation and reflexes with regard to driving or operating any heavy machinery.

So as far as I'm concerned it's up to each individual to be aware of what we are using and how it affects us as to whether we should be driving or not.

Plenty of people shouldn't be taking over the counter or prescription cough and cold medicine and driving but of course they do and they also are going to work~ same with anti seizure medication, allergy medication, and the list goes on ad nauseum.

I think more doctors and pharmacists need to caution people about their prescription medications and now seeing that many OTC meds are locked up too before dispensed (allergy and such) I believe most if not all prescription medications now come with written warnings attached but many people don't read labels let along the pamplet info given. It's CYA for the pharmacy but some people actually cannot read or comprehend written information. The majority of people however need to be more aware of what they're ingesting before getting behind the wheel. That goes for double double expressos and such as well! Sounds like Dale's physician was truly doing his job by advising his patient not to drive while using dilaudid (many doctors will caution with "be careful with regard to driving while taking xyz medication if they happen to think about it).

I still drive and will continue to drive until I no longer feel I can drive however I do limit when and where I drive. When people have given me a hard time about not driving on the freeway anymore I tell them they should be thanking me~ and I'm editing this reply to add that no one has told me in a long time not to drive on any of the medications I've been prescribed and there have been a whole slew of them as a nurse that I would have cautioned or advised patients with regard to driving and other activities as judgement and reflexes may be impaired. Usually it's see how you react to the drug before doing xyz ...