Companies don't like lost time injuries, so they want you to come in. But you don't have to do anything that hurts you. You can just sit. Good luck.

Safety and injury laws vary from place to place but one thing that is constant no matter where I work is that you will put your claim (or lawsuit or whatever) at risk if you refuse modified work duties. If they offer modified duties and your doctor agrees you are able to do those duties and you refuse, it will come back and bite you. Like GTG said, you are not expected to put yourself in pain. You can likely expect to do some filing that has fallen behind or some such.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

yeah, i spent some time on light duty before i was sent home- most of that time was spent doing inventory on small parts, cleaning, building lock kits, and just a little bit of filing and shredding paperwork. exciting stuff.... probably going to do all that stuff again.
the exciting thing to me is that when i get back i can start making my sculptures again. see my user pic? that's one of my creations. i make all kinds of little things with nuts and bolts.... i'm sitting on a few hundred dollars worth of orders right now that i haven't been able to build since i make them at work on my breaks. and then when i get whatever settlement from the insurance company i'm hoping to get my own machine so i can make them here at the house. if you want to see them , here's the link http://swiftmetalart.webs.com/

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~Dan

Yah, there's a guy near here who does something similar. He makes mostly animals, birds, dragons, insects, that sort of thing but he brazes his. Looks like you might be tigging yours. Brazing is a whole lot cheaper to do at home than tigging. Here's a lnk to my TIG welder: Miller Dynasty 200DX. All TIG machines are pricey. I chose this one because it was the only true all process machine I could find for under $5K. IMO, a multi process machine isn't really all process unless you can do balanced A/C TIG. I need to be able to TIG aluminium.

For your hobby, you could prolly find yourself a little wire feeder for under $500 for home use. They make some pretty light mig wire for the autobody shops. I think I've seen it as light as .020.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

i've played around with a few cheap 110 mig welders and didn't enjoy it at all. I'm looking at either a millermatic 211 or a maxstar 150. maybe. going to check them both out soon and see how they actually weld nuts and bolts and such.. i dunno. the thing for me is i need it to be cheap as possible but still reliable. i've always been a miller guy, never met a lincoln i liked. and yeah, most of them i do at work right now with a huge 20 year old syncrowave. i love that thing. pretty sweet machine youve got, btw.
i prefer tigging because i can just heat up the joints and bend them. getting a mig machine means more prep work. i have thought about just brazing it.... that would be the cheapest way to go.... i already have a torch that was given to me for free, just need some bottles.

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~Dan

You might ought to be careful using company material and equipment while in your current predicament. You might get fired.

hmmm..... i will be sure to make sure everythings still cool before i strike an arc.
it was before, i've made sure a dozen times, but yeah... not a bad idea to be careful.
thanks, gtg.

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~Dan

I had a herniated disc and went to a chiropractor...no issues since! I swear by mine!

That's bad news and I'm sorry to hear that.
First of all I'd like to wish you all the best for the future.

I can feel with you, it happened to me, too. In 2007 I lost my whole job carreer due to medical probs.
I used to be a commercial helicopter pilot, had flown for 20 years (military first, then civvy street).
I had invested 50 grands to get further civilian licenses and type ratings, just to get busted when reaching the "break even point".

So I not just lost my whole job carreer including all my future plans, I also ended up as a mid-forty job beginner in another field, with little to no chances of getting employed and even if .... it would certainly be no comparison to my previous life standard and job fulfillness which I felt with my previous job.

I went through a very hard time, money-wise as well as psychic-wise, with depressions and all that stuff.

I made my way through but it was very hard.

I just wish you to find a proper alternative and a way to cope with this situation.
Heads up, buddy, there's gonna be better days again.

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Kindest regards from Germany, Dee
My recordings --> http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_mu ... dID=564337
STRATS ROCK!!! but Teles and Firebirds, too!

That sucks, Dee. I think this week will be a real eye opener for me. I'm hoping I'll work a full week and feel okay, but I'm worried I'll hurt like i did before all over again after a couple of days. The fact that on the paperwork they sent it says this is as good as I'm going to get, that's what scares me. If i'm really going to be in this kind of pain forever (and I'm only 27) then I'll have to find a new line of work for myself even if I am at some point cleared to do more.
Airborne, i keep hearing chiropractors are the way to go. might have to just make an appointment for myself since no one wants to send me to one.

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~Dan

I would certainly recommend it! They often have "magic hands".
They'll bend you like a rubberstick and you're fine afterwards.
Sometimes something is just misaligned in your body which can cause great agony.

At the age of 27 you're not supposed to suffer that badly. I would give it a try!

Good luck and best recovery possible!!

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Kindest regards from Germany, Dee
My recordings --> http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_mu ... dID=564337
STRATS ROCK!!! but Teles and Firebirds, too!

At the end of the shift when all the workers at the Lincoln factory are all sweaty and tired of building junky machines all day they speak two words to each other as they punch out their times cards. Can you guess what those two words are?

Miller time!!!

The 211 Autoset is a wonderful machine. That's the wire feeder I bought. It works very, very well with way better penetration and fusion to the parent metal than the little 110V boxes but it's heavy. You won't be throwing that one in the back seat on a lark every time your buddies need something done. You'll be telling them to bring it to your place if they want you to work on it. With cables and a spool of core wire, you're over a hundred pounds already. Add a bottle and hoses and regulator for solid wire and well, you get the picture. With the 211 and the Stick/TIG inverter with high freq there isn't much I can't tackle as far as doing stuff at home.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I have a little Lincon 120 wirefeed welder thats not to bad. It was cheap for small stuff. I also have a Miller syncrowave 250DX that I play around with. Im far from knowing what Im doing with it. I have someone coming to my shop to teach me how to use it. Im not a welder by any means but I wanna learn for my own purpose. I consider a good welder like an artist.

that's a good one, bmw.
you hear the one about the guy who goes into the exotic petstore?
well, he sees this monkey with a pricetag of 10,000 dollars and asks the owner whats so special about this monkey.... the petstore guy says "that's an engineer monkey- you tell him what you need and he'll draw up blueprints that are 100% accurate and he never misses any details" the guy is impressed and says "wow, that must be the most expensive monkey ever!"
the owner says "actually, i also have this one over here for 15,000. He's a welding monkey. he'll take any blueprints you give him and build it perfectly in record time"
the guys says "holy cow, then THAT must be the most expensive monkey ever!"
the owner sighs and says, "well, there is one more i keep in back in his own air conditioned office.... he costs 50,000 dollars"
the man asks "well what in the world does he do?"
the owner replies "well, he claims he's a welding inspector.... but I haven't seen him do anything , yet"

tbazzone, i'd come over and teach you if you lived around here! i was an artist long before i got into welding, and my artistic mind definitely helped to wrap my head around it.

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~Dan

You can probably talk to your employer about setting up the shop with equipment that make heavy lifting easier or (even better) eliminated altogether. Winches, pulleys...hand trucks...work tables that make picking things up easier. That way, no one else in the shop has to suffer the way you are now in the future. You may have to do some homework to help them with this. They will $@!&* about the expense to be sure but, their workers comp is probably already killing them, and they don't want it to get any worse now do they? Work toward making this a POSITIVE solution for everyone in your shop and you may be surprised!