If you haven’t already, you need to start keeping a daily journal of events related to your claim for your attorney to use in preparing your case for a jury. This is important for a number of reasons.
First, you can use your notes to refresh your memory later as the case progresses. It is amazing how you forget some of the most painful physical feelings, and corresponding emotions, in your life. Include in your journal examples of how your life and physical pain have affected your daily life.
For example, if you have a lower back injury and you cannot wash dishes, cut your grass, unload your groceries, or find a comfortable position in which to sleep, you should make notes in your journal about these difficulties and what you had to do to compensate for them.
As a result of these difficulties, you may rely more heavily on your spouse or significant other to perform household duties such as washing dishes or vacuuming; you may hire a company to come cut your grass and perform other landscaping tasks; you may purchase a new mattress at your doctor’s suggestion that alleviates some of your pain while lying in bed.
All of these items are a significant inconvenience to you and you should record them so that you remember them later.
Second, it will help your attorney later to get a glimpse into your life and your pain and suffering. This glimpse will help your lawyer to prepare a demand package to send to the insurance company, and it will give him or her ammunition to challenge the insurance company’s refusal to offer a reasonable settlement. It will also better equip your lawyer to prepare for trial in your case if the insurance company refuses to offer a reasonable settlement.
And third, at the end of the day, journaling is good for your spirit. Ten years from now, you can look back at all you have experienced and remember, “I have come this far, I am better today than I was then.”
In the example of Samuel after Israel defeated the Philistines, Samuel “took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and named it Ebenezer saying, ‘Thus far the LORD has helped us.” 1 Samuel 7:12.
It is good to remember the victories of recovery whether it be spiritual, emotional, physical, or financial. Thus, it is good to record memories whether they are good or bad. So write your journal and record everything related to your injuries. Set your Ebenezer stone in your journal and say, “Thus far the LORD has helped me.”