Polling for DSP completing on DM6441

I am using the VIDDEC1_processAsync() and VIDDEC1_processWait() function calls to do some DSP processing on a DM6441 device.  When I supply a timeout of VIDDEC1_FOREVER to the processWait() call, things work just fine.  However, I need to be able to poll for completion.  The documentation  says that polling can be done by giving the processWait() function a timeout of 0.  When I do this, my application calls processWait() the first time and then it immediately kicks out of the main application.  Does anyone know why I am not able to poll using this method??