Hello everyone,
It’s with a heavy heart that I write these words tonight.
I work for the USPS. I was a Substitute rural carrier for 4 years and I’ve been a regular carrier for 5 years. In the 5 years I’ve been a career employee at the USPS I have had 4 surgeries. Every one of them has lost me money.
On September 30th, 2021 I had a full thickness quadricep tendon and quadricep muscle tear, full thickness. An injury suffered on the job exiting a customer’s home onto wet uneven steps without a railing. I waited for 8 days to have surgery on my detached tendon, which I could feel coiling up towards my groin on my right leg. I proceeded to have surgery from doctor Scot Weiner who said, “you had one of the most blown out knees I’ve ever operated on.”
The Postal Service wouldn’t pay me for being out of work and injured on the job, I am owed two months salary from this. $10,000. I went back to work on January 1st on light duty to get some sort of income. Being without a paycheck for eight weeks will have had a severe impact on my credit. You can see in my credit history that I had perfect 730 credit before this injury. During this time of my life I was going through a separation with my ex wife. That happened on January 31st of 2022. By April/March my credit would start to plummet due to the lack of money.
Let’s cover why the USPS didn’t pay me. They said that “I didn’t have surgery” and that “there was no proof of surgery.” All anyone needs to do is literally look at my right knee, see the hole in my quadricep and the massive scar that runs from below my knee to well above my knee by six to eight inches.
I go through rehab, move in with my parents and go through the start of a long arduous divorce process with a vengeful/spiteful/vindictive, ex wife. When I moved out she kept the kids from me for 108 days, a number that I have tattooed on my right bicep, a number that I’ll never forget. During those 108 days my 7 month old daughter went from crawling/rolling to learning and started walking.
On September 23rd, 2022 While I was at work loading my work vehicle up for the day I took a step up onto the loading dock with my left leg and felt an all too familiar feeling of a tendon snapping. I ruptured my achilles tendon on my left leg less than one calendar year from a full thickness tendon and muscle tear on the other leg. I would again wait days for surgery. This time by Doctor Z. Blakeman.
The repairs for the tendon involved putting in hardware that would hold my tendon to the bone again so it could attach itself, along with sewing up the ruptured tendon. While the doctor was in operation he exercised a bone spur on the left heel as well.
The healing process goes very very poorly. The skin on my achilles tendon, ‘sluffs off,’ as the doctor said. There is now a golf ball sized wound on the back of my heel and you can literally see my achilles tendon. There is no skin graft, we let nature run its course. The entire time I had this wound it was ‘leaky.’ Little did we know, my body was rejecting the hardware installed to repair my tendon. So just as the wound on my tendon gets closed up Dr. Z. Blakeman sends me to the emergency room in Portland, Maine for immediate surgery so that I do not lose my foot. As the infection has set into my bone.
On July 11th, 2023 I would have immediate surgery to have the hardware installed to fix my tendon initially, taken out. The estimated healing time of this is less than the initial surgery because the tendon is still semi attached to the bone and the wound that would develop, again, would be slightly smaller this time. No skin graft, just me and my tendon, I shouldn’t know what my achilles tendon looks like this intimately. The wound ends up being larger than the initial wound but more shallow, not as deep.
I’m quite proficient at this point in caring for wounds, although I wish I wasn’t. Because for the duration of both surgerys on my achilles I was the one caring for the wound, there was no nurse daily. There were doctors appointments spread out by about 2 weeks and me caring for the wound with supplies that the doctors and nurses give me at the appointments.
Through both achilles surgeries I was paid, at a very reduced rate, but I was paid so I could live.
Christmas 2024 I’m a mailman and I’m working very hard delivering Christmas volume to the zipcode I service. The USPS decides that during Christmas time is the perfect time to find out that there was a clerical error made on my paychecks for 7 paychecks, over paid by $200 each check somehow. So they charged me a bill and GARNISHED MY WAGES, in the middle of peak season, when I’m supposed to be making money. Mind you, Christmas time is the only time of the year when a Mailman is able to earn overtime. Literally, there are 3 weeks a year I can earn overtime. It’s the 3 weeks before Christmas. So my two ‘big overtime checks’ were smaller than my normal checks because they took so much money out of my paycheck. That’s $1,400.
On April 11th, 2025 I was scheduled for a colonoscopy/ hemorrhoidectomy. For the procedure an epidural was placed in my spine to control pain during and after the procedure. It’s an ‘outpatient/day surgery’ where somehow they play medical games with insurance/paperwork and they don’t bill overnight, for some reason. I do stay the night. Now, mind you, I have an epidural in my spine and can barely wiggle my toes. But that’s all part of it and no one is concerned.
I sat in one position in a hospital bed for 26-28 hours. 26-28 hours before I insisted that they remove the epidural so that I can stand up again, and attempt to use the restroom so that I can be discharged. When I stood up and from the hospital bed and looked down there was feces all over the multiple chucks (medical absorbent pads) I was sitting on.
I sat in feces after an operation on my bottom.
Did you know when a person is paralyzed they move that patient every 6-8 hours to prevent them getting sores?
When I finally regained my footing enough to go into the restroom, I did just that. A nurse helped me to set up a ‘towel moat’ so water wouldn’t run into my room from the bathroom, I kid you not. I was instructed not to take off the medical packing & absorbent pads they adhered to the skin on my bottom, on my butt cheeks, covering my recently operated on anus.
The covering tape/packing was already coming off due to the feces loosening it because it has to make way out. I was paralyzed, I couldn’t feel it.
When I took everything off and rinsed off with warm water, it was glorious. But after that I looked at the wall mirror and saw the burns/blisters/purple pigmented skin. I didn’t know it at the time, because I’d found out at my post op appointment.
I have 3rd degree chemical burns across my butt cheeks & along the inside of my butt cheeks, above my anus, luckily. The burns were full thickness, through all 7 layers of my skin.
I had enough annual leave and sick leave to cover myself for the procedure, which put me out of work for 4 weeks. I cleaned out my annual leave & sick leave for the year.
This chemical burn that no one wants to take ownership of has now set me out of work for an additional 3 weeks. That’s about $4,000 I’m never receiving from anyone, ever.
The USPS has not paid me for a total of $11,400 over 4 years. Along with being wounded on my buttocks and out of work for 3 additional weeks that no one wants to pay for. around ~$4,0000 bringing me to being shorted $15,000 in 5 years, niiiice. Along with the fact that I went through divorce on 9-13-24 and still haven’t received my parcel of land or my money from that relationship. Supposedly $14,000 whenever the universe see’s fit to send me my money I’m owed. I would love my $30,000…I have credit to fix, as it was perfect in 2021, now it’s a dismal 560.
I’ve had a yard sale, I sold my tools, my kayak, my disc golf cage. And I’ve sold my most precious items, my Pinny Arcade Pins. But it’s not enough
I am back to work, but my first paycheck from being back at work will not come until 6.17.2025.
I need your help. Anything you can spare. Please and thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
