ACL injury two months before departure
March 28th, 2008 by jnelson.Hello,
My wife recently tore her ACL and will require surgery and rehabilitation to fix it. We were nominated to go to Burkina Faso in June 08 and now we are waiting to hear back from OMS about what will happen with us. I fear that they will make us wait an inordinate amount of time (5-6 months, possibly more!) before they medically clear her again.
Does anyone know of someone else that received an injury right before departure.?
Did they go to their nominated country or were they sent somewhere else? Will the PC decided we are not worth the trouble (gasp!) How long were they deferred?
We just found out that the ACL was torn yesterday and called OMS and left a voice mail. We haven’t heard anything as of this morning. I am just worried and I have a terrible feeling that OMS will be vague and not tell us when we could expect to ship out. I am a teacher and kind of need to know if I should return to my current school (which didn’t give me a renewal contract as I announced in December that I was moving to Africa with the Peace Corps) or just have an extended summer.
March 28th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I also have an invitation for June 08 (Ghana), and had an injury requiring surgery last month. I had my surgery on Feb 1st, so I know that gives me almost 2 months on you… but here’s what happened with me anyway: I had torn ligaments (2) in the thumb on my left hand, and it required surgery to repair. I had very vague word from OMS & my PO for a few weeks after my first doctor visit; the only response I had for a while was a medical hold on my toolkit. I decided to go ahead with the surgery without knowing for sure where that would leave me with PC. Ultimately I got a call from OMS saying to fax all documentation I had from my doctor — this week I finally got a letter saying that in order to remove the hold I need to fax letters from my doc & phys therapist saying the surgery was successful and recovery will be complete by June, etc. Once I do that I should be good to go.
Now I know all that doesn’t exactly apply to your situation - ACL vs. thumb is a big difference! - but that’s what happened to me. OMS will be vague, if what happened to me was the norm. If you have a good rapport with your PO you might try him/her for their opinion, but it’s only an opinion. Logically, even if they keep you in suspense for a while, you should still have an answer by May (”only” a month or so away, ha). My only advice is to be obsessive about doctors’ documentation, fax it all to OMS whether or not they ask for it, leave emails and voice messages like a crazy person, and send them a note summarizing everything you know (when you will be rehab’d, etc). Good luck.