So, here it goes. During the week of Thanksgiving 2012 I was fired from my job. The events that led up to this were terrible and borderline illegal. I will never again allow myself to trust and lean on an employer the way I did this doctor.
For you to fully understand the depths of my frustration with this situation, I will need to start from the beginning.
When I was diagnosed in October I was an associate doctor at a very busy clinic. I worked an average of 50 hours 6 days a week and I was the only doctor at this clinic 95% of the time.
Ill try to break down the events that lead to me being let go the best I can so maybe you can see why this has been so incredibly painful for me.
The first week in October is when I woke up with a high fever, aches, and chills. Since I was the only doc at that clinic I could not call in. We had just hired a part time doc the week before but he was still training and did not have a set schedule yet. By Wednesday my fever was gone and it was replaced by the worst headache of my life. My vision was gone and colors were distorted in my left eye. By Thursday I knew something was very wrong and told my employer I needed the next afternoon off.
After a series of tests and 2 MRI's the second week in October it was confirmed that I did in fact have MS. The next steps I had to take would be finding a neurologist ASAP. I could not get an appointment until that Friday so during the week I continued to work. My husband drove me everyday because my vision did not allow me to drive safely. All the while I still had a horrendous headache. On that Thursday I worked an outside event at NASA massaging potential patients for 4 hours. I was unable to function by the end of the event and asked if the newly hired doc could take my place in the clinic during our afternoon hours. My boss was less then understanding and this became a sore subject for us both as time progressed.
After seeing my neurologist it was determined that I need a course of IV steroids. This procedure was a daily thing for three days that took up a better part of two hours. My boss and I determined that I would not work in the clinic but only do outside community events for the third and fourth weeks in October. Or at least that was the plan. During this time my boss also decided that I should go from being salaried employee to an hourly employee. Even though I signed an employment contract stating I would be a salaried employee I never signed a new contract stating that I would now be an hourly employee. She requested I keep a documented log of when I worked and give it to her weekly until further notice. That third week went as planned and I worked about 25 hours.
By Sunday, though, the plan had completely fallen apart.
The fourth week I was back working full time but, still on an hourly wage, because the part time doctor didn't work out. Come Friday I had logged 40 hours and prepared to go to our quarterIy seminar in Dallas in which I should have received over-time for. On our way up my boss decided she didn't want to pay me over-time for attending the seminar in Dallas so she put me back on salary effective Friday end of working day. We came home late Saturday night.
I continued to work full time for the next 3 weeks, with only a slight modification to my schedule. I was eventually given Tuesday afternoons off (after I attended our weekly staff meeting) so I worked 4 hours less each week. I still worked every Saturday and through my lunch on Wednesdays. Although it did help, it was not enough. One day of rest to recuperate from a long week was not enough. Not to mention the fact that I never truly rested from my initial flare up.
The week before Thanksgiving I got sick with a bad cold/sinus infection. My general practioner mentioned I should try to be part time for a few months while my body tried to finish healing. I told her that should not be a problem because we had hired a part time doc before and I was confident my employer would be open to the idea.
Oh how very wrong I was..........
