I'm trying to get my ducks in a row to be able to have top surgery in March (hopefully!)  I feel as if I should get an act in the circus with all the juggling I'm trying to do!  I can't get an appointment until I have the money, but I don't want to cash out the money until I know if I can get the time off work, but I can't ask for the time off work until I have a date to give them, which means I need an appointment ... Aaargh!

I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about.  (Any general advice on how to organize things would be very much appreciated!)

Anyway, the  ball I'm currently concentrating on is trying to determine if FMLA and disability insurance will kick in so I can take 6-8 weeks off.  (I realize that top surgery doesn't strictly require that much time, but I work a very active job with a lot of lifting, bending and stretching, so I think it is wise to take as much time as possible under the circumstances.)  Disability is up the the insurance company, and would be a major boon if I'm covered, but not a deal breaker if I'm not.  But having that guarantee that I won't lose my job that FMLA gives me is important.  HR is sending me a packet, and I will need to have my doctor fill it out.

My question is, can anyone give me any pointers to help this go smoothly?  Are there any phrases that my doctor needs to be sure to include in order to be covered?  Has anyone here been covered by FMLA and/or disability insurance during your recovery time?  Any advice you can give me will be appreciated!

in my case  flma was good  but the disablity would only kick in for something that was covered by insurance
srs was not but flma was in place so my job was safe

My company didn't ask me to fill out FMLA paperwork for the 8 weeks I took off for lower surgery.  I believe I wrote urethroplasty or something like that for disability; gynecomastia surgery should suffice for disability.  They did not specify that what I was having done had to be covered by insurance; my doctor had to sign off on it that I needed to be out for 8 weeks and wrote a note to that effect for work.

Good luck!


Jay

Thanks for the replies! 

Quote from: Jamie-o on January 13, 2011, 03:55:41 AM
Anyway, the  ball I'm currently concentrating on is trying to determine if FMLA and disability insurance will kick in so I can take 6-8 weeks off.  (I realize that top surgery doesn't strictly require that much time, but I work a very active job with a lot of lifting, bending and stretching, so I think it is wise to take as much time as possible under the circumstances.)

From my experience with top surgery, if your job is active and involves a lot of upper body movement--definitely take the 8 weeks!  At 8 weeks, I was only just regaining my full range of motion.

Maybe I was an unusual case, maybe I was being too careful, but even 4 months after surgery I would get pains in my chest if I tried to lift something heavy.  Don't get me wrong, I was able to do it and it's not like I was pulling stitches--I would just have nerve pain, felt a bit like burning, if I tried to exert myself too much.  This could possibly be because I had a peri with liposuction and ended up with nerve damage on one side (it's slowly getting better).  I was definitely surprised at how long it actually took me to feel healed and 'back to my old self'.  Listening to what some guys say on forums and on YouTube (hardly needed the pain meds, back to fairly normal activities after 2 weeks, back to the gym after a month) I was expecting the healing process to be muuuch shorter.  It wasn't.  YMMV if you're getting a DI, but I still think it would be wise to take it easy for as long as possible.

I'm afraid I don't know much about FMLA; good luck with getting everything sorted out.