Putting All Of Our Lives On Hold. Again.
Otherwise Titled: It's a lot less work to follow in someone's footsteps than it is to blaze your own trail.
Once again, I find myself making a lot of people scramble to make my completely abnormal existence into something that can be shoe horned into the mold.
Fibromyalgia makes it hard for me to process a lot of foods--but lactose intolerance and gluten rejection are my problem, and no one else's.
Fibromyalgia makes my hands stiff, my back ache, my knees lock--but trouble sitting, standing or walking is a problem you eventually just work around.
Fibromyalgia increases the already difficult time I have with numbers, with names and faces, with dates and time, and causes a healthy amount of aphasia, which makes me loose words all the time. Apparently, this means learning Spanish is a nearly impossible task for me. And suddenly, my fibromyalgia is everyone's problem--my teachers, my family, poor Brian, the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts . . psychologists and doctors are suddenly involved, there is a cast of supporting characters I will never remember . . . and my world just crumbles into a mess of hard times and delays.
Today I started the long, arduous task of convincing IUPUI that a) Fibromyalgia is a disability for me, b) that my otherwise stellar school record is because I work very hard, and should not be held against me when I ask for help at last, and c) that I should not have to pay for an unnecessary portion of an otherwise worthwhile course load.
It did not go well.
I won't bore you with the bus ride, the meeting or the panic attack, just the end results:
I have to contact CAPS, and schedule an appointment. They will give me an evaluation, with a psychologist. (For some reason, this is horrible for me--I cry in front of other people's counselors, how am I going to be taken seriously at this?) That psychologist will determine if, how many, and what tests I need to take, to receive a diagnosis--each test costing either $250, or $500 apiece. These results will go to two places: AES , where I will be branded "disabled" and who will work with this and any other school I go to, to make sure my needs are accommodated appropriately, and Dean Rick Ward, who will use the results to campaign in my defense.
The result options:
A) You have a terrible disability, and you are amazing for getting so far at all, so you should be able to skip along your merry way.
Apparently, this is highly unlikely.
B) You have a terrible disability, and you are amazing for getting so far at all, so you should be able to have all the help you need, so we won't make you take a language, just replace it with these Summer school classes on some other culture (apparently African American culture, and apparently I will have a "concentration" in African American studies then) and your graduation date will be bumped up to December.
My Dean assures me this is the most likely case, and that I will probably have to pay for those classes out of pocket since I won't have any more financial aid available for this year. . . . But he will use the test results to fight for this being a viable replacement, or else I will have to take Fall classes too, which we would both hate to see. Plus, he can try to get my Spanish funding reimbursed for me, so maybe that will take some of the sting out of this bad option.
C) My test results will be fine--no problem here. Since FMS is so variable and ever changing right now, and I am not on any meds, I could have a "good day" and fly through the tests like my old self, and it will look like even though I am an A- student, with good grades in much higher level classes, this 100 level Spanish class is only hard for me because I am an idiot, and that's no excuse for failure. So I would have to go back, and try to take it again. Or worse, switch to ASL, which I have a better chance of doing, if I can get on the right pain meds, but which will put me back two semesters, not just one.
Hence, the panic attack.
After I am all done with days of testing and paperwork with CAPS, I get to go to a number of doctors, get all my diagnosis and paperwork settled, with all that money I don't have to go to the doctor when I actually want to, and turn it all over to AES for their support.
AES, CAPS, and the Dean all have good intentions of helping me graduate . ..some day. Which means my big plans to move to Bloomington in April may get pushed back to August, if not . .someday.
My lease is up in April.
Now I have to search for a sublease in Indianapolis. If I can't find a sublease, I have to look for a month to month. If we can't afford a month to month, then I have to look for a long term stay motel. Because Brian HAS a job in Indianapolis, and they don't know we were leaving, so he won't quit until I say. And I can't go to IU until I finish at IUPUI.
And at long last, my whole fiasco with not applying on time, getting my fresh start at IU all messed up, and having to approach grad school in the Fall as a Non-Degree Seeking Continuing Education Student has a bright side--IU never has to know I messed up the last semester of classes, and I don't need to re-reapply. That part has all the potential of going off smoothly. I can't reapply there until January no matter what.
I would love to be able to think of any other bright sides . . . the best I can come up with is that we were going to sublet in Bloomington and move twice anyway, so maybe this time, we will get rid of all of our stuff in Indy, not Bloomington, and the move there has the potential for saving a little bit of money now. But my Bloomington friends are not going to be happy with the delay. And Brian's kids are going to go ballistic if they are told they have to spend five weeks with us in a long term stay motel. Plus, I don't have any idea where I am going to come up with the money to pay for all that testing, and the extra classes, on top of doctor's bills.
THIS SUCKS. It sucks big hairy dead monkey balls of doom. Ok? That's right, I said it. OF. DOOM.
In the end, I may not graduate on time--or at all. Because, happy circumstance that it is--FMS is triggered by stress, and the harder this gets, the more stress I am under, so the harder it gets, and suddenly . . . I don't see a way out. But I NEED a Ph.D if I want to go on and be independent, and do good work, and succeed in the field I have chosen for myself, without working in entry level positions following somebody else's great work, and always having to drag myself forward into the day. I NEED to do this. I MUST do this.
There is no other option.
Once again, I find myself making a lot of people scramble to make my completely abnormal existence into something that can be shoe horned into the mold.
Fibromyalgia makes it hard for me to process a lot of foods--but lactose intolerance and gluten rejection are my problem, and no one else's.
Fibromyalgia makes my hands stiff, my back ache, my knees lock--but trouble sitting, standing or walking is a problem you eventually just work around.
Fibromyalgia increases the already difficult time I have with numbers, with names and faces, with dates and time, and causes a healthy amount of aphasia, which makes me loose words all the time. Apparently, this means learning Spanish is a nearly impossible task for me. And suddenly, my fibromyalgia is everyone's problem--my teachers, my family, poor Brian, the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts . . psychologists and doctors are suddenly involved, there is a cast of supporting characters I will never remember . . . and my world just crumbles into a mess of hard times and delays.
Today I started the long, arduous task of convincing IUPUI that a) Fibromyalgia is a disability for me, b) that my otherwise stellar school record is because I work very hard, and should not be held against me when I ask for help at last, and c) that I should not have to pay for an unnecessary portion of an otherwise worthwhile course load.
It did not go well.
I won't bore you with the bus ride, the meeting or the panic attack, just the end results:
I have to contact CAPS, and schedule an appointment. They will give me an evaluation, with a psychologist. (For some reason, this is horrible for me--I cry in front of other people's counselors, how am I going to be taken seriously at this?) That psychologist will determine if, how many, and what tests I need to take, to receive a diagnosis--each test costing either $250, or $500 apiece. These results will go to two places: AES , where I will be branded "disabled" and who will work with this and any other school I go to, to make sure my needs are accommodated appropriately, and Dean Rick Ward, who will use the results to campaign in my defense.
The result options:
A) You have a terrible disability, and you are amazing for getting so far at all, so you should be able to skip along your merry way.
Apparently, this is highly unlikely.
B) You have a terrible disability, and you are amazing for getting so far at all, so you should be able to have all the help you need, so we won't make you take a language, just replace it with these Summer school classes on some other culture (apparently African American culture, and apparently I will have a "concentration" in African American studies then) and your graduation date will be bumped up to December.
My Dean assures me this is the most likely case, and that I will probably have to pay for those classes out of pocket since I won't have any more financial aid available for this year. . . . But he will use the test results to fight for this being a viable replacement, or else I will have to take Fall classes too, which we would both hate to see. Plus, he can try to get my Spanish funding reimbursed for me, so maybe that will take some of the sting out of this bad option.
C) My test results will be fine--no problem here. Since FMS is so variable and ever changing right now, and I am not on any meds, I could have a "good day" and fly through the tests like my old self, and it will look like even though I am an A- student, with good grades in much higher level classes, this 100 level Spanish class is only hard for me because I am an idiot, and that's no excuse for failure. So I would have to go back, and try to take it again. Or worse, switch to ASL, which I have a better chance of doing, if I can get on the right pain meds, but which will put me back two semesters, not just one.
Hence, the panic attack.
After I am all done with days of testing and paperwork with CAPS, I get to go to a number of doctors, get all my diagnosis and paperwork settled, with all that money I don't have to go to the doctor when I actually want to, and turn it all over to AES for their support.
AES, CAPS, and the Dean all have good intentions of helping me graduate . ..some day. Which means my big plans to move to Bloomington in April may get pushed back to August, if not . .someday.
My lease is up in April.
Now I have to search for a sublease in Indianapolis. If I can't find a sublease, I have to look for a month to month. If we can't afford a month to month, then I have to look for a long term stay motel. Because Brian HAS a job in Indianapolis, and they don't know we were leaving, so he won't quit until I say. And I can't go to IU until I finish at IUPUI.
And at long last, my whole fiasco with not applying on time, getting my fresh start at IU all messed up, and having to approach grad school in the Fall as a Non-Degree Seeking Continuing Education Student has a bright side--IU never has to know I messed up the last semester of classes, and I don't need to re-reapply. That part has all the potential of going off smoothly. I can't reapply there until January no matter what.
I would love to be able to think of any other bright sides . . . the best I can come up with is that we were going to sublet in Bloomington and move twice anyway, so maybe this time, we will get rid of all of our stuff in Indy, not Bloomington, and the move there has the potential for saving a little bit of money now. But my Bloomington friends are not going to be happy with the delay. And Brian's kids are going to go ballistic if they are told they have to spend five weeks with us in a long term stay motel. Plus, I don't have any idea where I am going to come up with the money to pay for all that testing, and the extra classes, on top of doctor's bills.
THIS SUCKS. It sucks big hairy dead monkey balls of doom. Ok? That's right, I said it. OF. DOOM.
In the end, I may not graduate on time--or at all. Because, happy circumstance that it is--FMS is triggered by stress, and the harder this gets, the more stress I am under, so the harder it gets, and suddenly . . . I don't see a way out. But I NEED a Ph.D if I want to go on and be independent, and do good work, and succeed in the field I have chosen for myself, without working in entry level positions following somebody else's great work, and always having to drag myself forward into the day. I NEED to do this. I MUST do this.
There is no other option.