I didn't realize what I'd done to myself untill the next day when I went to put on my shoes and found the huge blisters on my feet. Took me a few minutes to figure out how the hell I'd done it as well.
So on the way home I called my Doc in Oroville and asked for a referral to Wound Care at Enloe. I didn't know how long that would take to get authorized, but I knew those burns were WAY too big for me to manage on my own. Turns out the Doc's office said "no prior authorisation was needed" for stuff like this, so the next day off to wound care I went.

All has been going well untill today. My feet have been healing well... We'd been applying a layer of xeroform and then wrappin' the footzies with gauze for about 2 weeks when the girls suggested I switch to a dry dressing- Just swabbin' them with betadine every mornin' then wrappin' them up. So I did that for about a week, problem was the edges of the scabs were drying out and pulling, ripping the skin. This caused (I guess) great pain in my feet as every time I ran over a change in the floor- From carpet to lino in the kitchen or back from lino to carpet the bounce would agitate the edges of the scabs causing them to tear a little and making my legs do the "sewing-machine". It would also make my quads (or what's left of them) to try to pull my feet up, which actually pulled my torso down. The result of the whole twitch-out was me getting thrown from the chair almost immediately. So I quickly went back to the xeroform as I don't like dragging myself around on the floor very much.

So I *thought* all was going well untill I went in thismorning.... The Admin had called down to the wound care shop wanting me to come up and talk to them after my appointment. I wondered what it was all about, but I was pretty sure I knew. So... after I got my feet fixed I went up there and sure enough, OWCP and or ACS was refusing to pay for the care. Why? Because the wounds "are not a direct result of my condition". Like I'm going to hold my feet in A GODDAMN FIRE FOR 4 HOURS IF I CAN FEEL THEM.

Dumbasses.

Really makes me wonder if anyone in either of those offices have read my file at all. Do they know I cannot feel a damn thing below the break? Apparently not. Do they care? Apparently not either.

So when something as obviously relating to my injury gets denied, I wonder what's going to happen later in life. Later when I get otherwise sick somehow in such a way that cannot be traced so completely back to the injury.

So I gave the admin lady some numbers to call and I'm going to talk to her tomorro and see what if anything was resolved.

When I went up to Klamath last week someone asked "why are you only getting 66% of your wages?" My answer was "I guess because they consider me 66% disabled." Which I found out today in my lawyer search is not true. I found this on a Federal Work Comp lawyer's (the only one Google found) site:

What benefits are available?
When an injury results in loss of wage-earning capacity and the injury results in less than total disability, compensation may be paid for only the wage loss. If the disability is partial, the United States swill pay the employee a monthly monetary compensation equal to 66 2/3 percent of the difference between his/her monthly pay and his/her monthly wage earning capacity (75% with dependents).

So it seems EVERYONE gets the same as me when they're considered "partialy disabled". So the Hotshot who cuts his big toe off with a Council Rake and can't hike anymore would get the same monetary award as I do. Don't laugh either, I saw it almost happen the day before I got my own dubiously named "benefits".
I do have one advantage tho. The amount I get now was based on 34K being made in a year. I made it in six months. So I really made Sixty Four Thousand Dollars that year. Or I would have had I kept working. So I need to find the person who sets up the 66% and have them redo their math. I haven't figured it out at the moment but I had seventeen days off between 7 May 01 and 31 Oct 01. Later I'll figure it out.

So maybe I'm looking at this whole thing the wrong way or something because I'm sure there's a few "back row" types out there sniggering and saying "lookit what you got, dumbass, not what you ain't... there's lotsa people worse than you." But then again maybe I'm looking at it from the view of a guy who expects to have to deal with this sort of crap for the rest of my life. First they tell me I can have / do something, then later it goes *POOF*. I asked a long time ago "What happens if I fall down and break my arm, and it hasn't anything to do with the origional back-breaking injury. Is that covered?" The answer was "Yes.". Now either it still is "Yes" and someone fell asleep at the switch, or yes has turned to no.
This isn't the only thing either. I'll draw your memory to the cell phone access gyp, the travel to Craig last year gyp, the collection notices I occasionaly get, the pushrims gyp, the catheter debacle of last week, and the "you don't deserve care for that" incident of today.

I have to admit that I'm beginning to wish I'd never heard of the U.S. Forest Service in particular, and firefighting in general. Not because of anything anyone in that job or organisation did or didn't do... Because of the treatment I've recieved after being injured on the job. Had I been out cutting wood or some other 'in the woods' type activity (I did plenty of 'em on days off) and something went wrong I might have ended up in this situation, except without insurance. But that's not what happened, and here I am. Sometimes I wonder which situation would have been better, as in the other I'd either be dead or at least be working with some big government entity who reads files.

I plopped down $300 on a new set of glasses after going to the optometrist this week as well... After handing over the Federal "insurance" card- I've been having vision problems when I drive... After a few hours things begin to go double on me and I can drive no longer. The only thing that makes it go away is sleep... Apparently my vision's changed quite a bit over the last year. Anyway, I had to throw down the bucks just in case OWCP denied the bill. If they don't, the Dr's will reimburse me.
Tell ya what. Bet ya $300 I never see my $300 again. At least I'll be able to see and hopefully not have the crosseyed vision problems after 2 or 3 hours of driving I've been having lately. Yeah. And not think I'm in my lane when I'm really in the oncoming lane, not get ran over by a logging truck, and live to get denied medical service another day.