On 9/9/2024 I was injured during a massage at Sports Performance Physical Therapy in Chula Vista…read more The LMT had her elbow in the intercostal space of my left anterior chest when I suddenly felt an incredible amount of sharp, stabbing pain. I cried out and requested that she remove her elbow from my chest.
The pain in my left chest was excruciating. I was unable to use my left arm without experiencing an enormous amount of pain. Even breathing was painful. Coughing and sneezing were unbearable. When I woke up the next morning, the pain was severe. Based on my symptoms, I was afraid I had a rib fracture.
I contacted Cristianah Comaduran, Operations Manager of Sports Performance to notify her of the injury. She spoke with the LMT, who verified what happened. We stayed in contact over the next several weeks. I informed her that I would be filing a claim with their liability insurance and would contact her once I was completely asymptomatic.
For the next two weeks, the pain was severe. I was unable to work, do household chores, and help my 4 year son with the things he needed, like getting dressed, bathing, basic ADLs. I filed a short term disability claim through my employer (I'm an ICU nurse). The stipulation for payment is that the first two weeks are unpaid, and then 60% of earnings are paid. This was a great financial burden for my family. The consequences of this injury were costly with low income for the months of October and November.
My pain continued to improve until I caught an upper respiratory infection (URI) that caused continuous coughing. The pain was back and it was severe. Each cough and sneeze was excruciating. Once the URI resolved, my pain improved. For two months, the pain and suffering was debilitating, not allowing me to work, exercise, take care of the household, and most importantly, my son. It caused sleepless nights because the pain medication I was prescribed did little to relieve my symptoms, which lead to chronic exhaustion. The findings of my MRI on 11/14/24, which was two months after the injury, showed asymmetric edema at the level of the left third sternocostal joint. Two months after the injury, I still had abnormal results which were consistent with my symptoms. My thoracic spine MRI from 2022 showed none of these injuries. My PCP's impression was that there was a sprain of costal cartilage subsequent encounter. He determined it was costal-sternal joint strain vs developing costochrondritis.
Along with pain and suffering, I experienced anxiety and distress due to financial strain. The injury resulted in thousands of dollars of missed wages. In addition, I was unable to accrue paid time off and contribute to my pension and retirement fund. This set me back two months from being vested at work. When I returned to work, I had very little sick or vacation time due to the inability to accrue paid time off (PTO). In January of 2025, I called out sick for 3 shifts (36 hours) when I was sick with the flu. I did not have enough sick time to cover the hours missed. I also received a double occurrence for my absence, which was not cleared from my record until January of 2026. It was worrisome that despite returning to work, the effects of this injury continued to be a financial burden and was affecting my performance review at work.
This incident has also resulted in out of pocket costs, such as co-pays and pharmaceuticals, not to mention I was never reimbursed for the massage that started it all!! Perhaps worse than everything, I had to borrow money from my parents, so there's an element of shame in addition to the pain, suffering, and distress.
This injury has been costly in terms of lost wages/PTO accrual and out of pocket expenses, not to mention inability to contribute to retirement and inch closer to being vested at my place of employment.
I submitted an incredible amount of documents to Sports Performance in attempt to file a claim against their liability insurance. They were extremely difficult to work with and despite my repeated efforts to present all documents they requested, my claim was denied. Total cost for lost wages and out of pocket costs: $20,224.09. Because of this massage, I experienced pain, suffering, chronic exhaustion due to insomnia, anxiety, distress, and shame...and I didn't even get a fucking apology.