Several weeks ago i was in a car accident where i sustained injuries (nothing major). While ortho was doing MRIs on my neck and back, they found herniated discs but they also found several (about 4-7) tumors on my spine. All varying in size with the largest being the size of a penny.
They are comprising my nerves that causes me to get numbness, weakness and tingling in parts of my body along with uncontrolled spasms. Doctor said given the location of the tumors, its too risky for me to continue working since i do manual work that requires heavy lifting…etc and one mishap can leave me paralyzed from the neck down.
We've been doing many tests to determine if its benign or malignant but doctors says it looks cancerous. (Since it appears its been slowly spreading, given the fact theres multiple.) I cant take FMLA just yet until we know for sure this is or isnt cancer.
For time being, doctor took me out of work for two weeks. Benign or not, i will require surgery which will put me out of work for several weeks and light duty with minimal lifting for several more. My job has already stated that if i had to miss more than 2 weeks of work and could not be on full duty, then they wont need me and replace me.
My health insurance is tied to my job. If i lose my insurance, im so fucking screwed and i dont know what to do. This is my health, possibly life at risk here and it could all crash and burn.
Even if im able to get FMLA, its likely i wont return full duty (my job requires lifting 50-80 pounds multiple times a day.) In that 12 week time span. So i wont have any protection after that. What the hell am i supposed to do? I feel like my life is crumbling apart.