"Everything requires jumping through hoops"

And your best chance of ever receiving the "pain and suffering" check (boy is that antiquated terminology) is to go through the hoops of physical therapy. I went for about 4 weeks. It would have been 6 but I was very sick for 2. They wanted me to do 3 sessions a week, but, I couldn't commit to the buses 3 days a week. Too much trauma. They also reccommended that I go for 3 more weeks, finishing up by the end of August.

I really enjoyed the exercises but had extremely mixed feelings about being there. One of the therapists who was asking me questions about my pain, asked me to describe the pain in my arms and hands. I told her that it is excruciating pins and needles that are there all of the time. She said: "Pins and needles doesn't qualify as pain." "I asked about pain." she reitterated. (Sounds like she's never experiences nerve damage or she'd know how painful it is.) I got to experience 3 therapists and 2 aides at the p.t. center in the hospital. I thought that 2 of the 3 therapists were fairly professional, one was very very rushed, very manic, and one seemed bi-polar treating me angelically one session and cold the next. So I never signed up for her again. I didn't like the aides at all. I thought they were incompetent and I didn't trust either of them. One was male, one female. The guy was about 20, very loud, unprofessional, didn't seem to know what he was doing. If the therapists left him alone for one minute he seemed dumbfounded. He wouldn't make sure I was doing the exercises the proper way. He'd ask me 2x a week, how he is supposed to place the electrodes for nerve stim! If the job is right for you, you'd be learning a little bit every week. He never seemed to be any smarter than the week before. He had a booming loud bass voice which would scare me if he came up from behind. In the end the main reason I didn't finish the physical therapy was because he made me uncomfortable. The head p.t. institution in Carroll County provided us with a detailed written survey. I filled it out and sent it in yesterday.