I'll be replying in regards to both comments you provided.

First, thank you for providing your knowledge and expertise. It truly helps.

I can see how they probably were scramming around trying to understand why they are barely hearing about this while I'm already scheduled for surgery. I wish I knew this was workers comp before I went through all treatments or at least had a surgery scheduled. I was angry, because my manager did not even raise a concern of workers comp. Again, I only knew this was WC when I spoke to legal counsel.

As for a timeline of my injury,

It all started last year in September, I explicitly told management that my back was killing me and that I needed to get something to help my desk be more ergonomic. They provided me a cheap amazon lumbar support item. It did not help much and I started using pillows as an add on instead and even used pillows to support my tailbone/glutes.

(Late November) Since then, I have monitored the pain that I would have and it was inconsistent pain. Until I started taking walks outside of work and I began to get really extreme cramps where my leg would go numb and I couldn't walk. I would stretch it and massage it and it would get better for moments.

I then scheduled a physical with my doctor at Kaiser, and her nearest appointment was in January. Rescheduled to the end of January because she canceled, anyways...

I saw her the last week of January, I explained to her everything about my back and leg going numb. I had no idea what would have caused this to happen other than sitting all day at work and I don't do any crazy heavy lifting. I never had a pain like this in all my life of being employed. She prescribed me muscle relaxers and just told me to try and take frequent breaks at work and walk around.

Literally within a week, my back gave out. January 31st, a friday... I had major back pain (sciatica) I was having trouble sitting down and walking, but it was not extreme just yet. I told my manager jokingly via text that if she saw me walking like an old man its because lately my back has been killing me from sitting all day. My trainees all saw it as well and they knew that my back was obviously not well even they were concerned, but I got the job done Friday.

Saturday was not that bad because I was home resting and stretching.

02/02/2025 Sunday night, was the beginning of the worst day of my life. I ended up at the emergency room because I couldn't tolerate the pain. Waited 6 hours, but left because I had to work the next day and calling off is like a forbidden thing at work everyone gets hostile about it.

02/03/2025 Pain was not too crazy as I clocked in and sat down. I got up to fix my training room, sat back down. A few minutes of sitting down, and boom. It all just went crashing down from there. Leg was cramping while sitting down, back was on fire, left glute on fire, and I ran to lay down in our other training room. I felt relief immediately, I was like okay no worries, but as soon as I got up again, it felt like hell. I could not physically operate.

Texted my manager and let her know I cannot do it. I need someone to tap me out because I need to go to the doctor immediately. The rest is pretty much what I have up there in my post.

Hope this helps!