I turned in grades yesterday. He now wants to know what he can do to pass my class. Seriously?!

Um. Whoa. Wicked whoa.

So, the quest to get a new nebulizer hasn't gotten any easier. And my poor PCP is trying to coordinate this while she's doing a rotation in the ICU. So, she asked one of the nurses in the clinic to help. That nurse made *one* phone call, then called me and said, "I'm sorry. We can't help you."

So, I made some phone calls and tracked down a place that contracts with MassHealth then called her back with the number. I said, "Please call and order me a neb through them." She's like, "Which one do you want?" I said, "One that works." She's like, "There's over 45 different versions." To which I responded, "You've never been on MassHealth before, have you? Because if you had, you'd know that we'll be lucky if *one* of those versions is part of the contract. Why don't you get me that one?"

I may be losing my patience with today. And now I have to go into a job interview. Blech.

I found my inhaler! I had an asthma attack during trapeze last week, and I had to borrow someone else's because mine wasn't in my backpack where it always was. I thought I was going to have to go to the health center to get a prescription for a new one, but I just found it in my jacket pocket.

I never, ever thought to ask for a grade change. I'm meara, I think. (Hi, meara!) I asked for extensions on papers sometimes, but usually not even that.

With regard to the patient advocate issue, it's HUGELY important. You do have to be your own best advocate, whenever possible, especially with an unfamiliar doctor. My mother learned this the hard way several times over, because her condition is complicated and doesn't follow the usual course of lupus.

Even when I was pregnant, and had gestational diabetes, my doctors were always kind of amazed I knew so much about blood sugar and insulin, etc., which shocked me. It's my body, and I'm going to be the first in line to take care of it. Especially when, during one hospital stay, the kitchen kept sending up juice, despite the huge DIABETIC note on my chart. ::rolls eyes forever::

I had an appointment once which turned out to be a "consult". That is, I missed three hours of work for the doctor to give me less information about the procedure she was going to do (at some future date) than I had already gotten from the Web. I was STEAMED.

Especially when, having taken the additional three hours on another day to have the procedure done, I showed up to find that the doctor had called in sick. Okay, that one wasn't her fault. Nevertheless, I found another specialist and wrote a long letter to her, my HMO, and my PCP.

The one time I asked for an extension, I got screwed. There were 3 papers in the class, prof had been super slack about late papers, so I decided, in the midst of a show, that I would turn the paper in late and take the hit. I had a thesis, had marked my quotes, just couldn't motivate. Go to class the next day, go to the prof afterwards to ask whether the late policy is per day late or class day late (with a tues/thurs class, I either had to write it that night, or would have the weekend). He says "I'm not taking late papers. If it's not in my box by 5, I won't accept it". It was 1:15 PM.

My BFF who was in the class with me, started saying "you can do it, if you turn SOMETHING in, it's better than an F" etc. I said "I need some lunch." She stared at me and said "okay". So, I had some lunch, calmed down, then went to the lab and started writing the paper at 2PM. At 4:45, I printed off 11 pages (didn't even read it over), left all of my shit in the lab, and Flo Joed it across Grounds to turn in the paper. I came running/falling into the English office at 4:58, gasping. Secy told me to calm down, and initialed the paper for 4:59. End of story, right? No.

Next class, prof says "there are 90 people in this class, I only got 45 papers. Any late papers will be heavily penalized" I was LIVID. I was actually too pissed to talk to him. I went to see him the next day, but he'd been hospitalized for some surgery, so I talked to the TA, explained the situation, and asked for the opportunity to do a rewrite. He said I could, and I got an A-. Which pissed me off, because I could have gotten an A!!!

::sits quietly in corner. anyone who tries to return me back to my employer may become damaged.::

::scoops brain up with spoon::

But, generally, students have this entitlement thing. I have had FOUR students drop out of my summer program after committing because they got "better" offers. They think it's okay if they say that they're sorry.

Please note, I am not saying that other people shouldn't ask for extensions or are evil or anything. Just that I myself am so mindlessly rule-abiding that I tend to not even consider the possibility, unless something ACTUALLY huge happened.

Like, when my grandmother died during finals week freshman year...I arranged to take one exam two days early, and my mom came out and packed my room up while I took my last exam and then we drove to the funeral. (of course, the one I took early was a MULTIPLE CHOICE philosophy intro final, so it's not like it was hard)

meara, there's a lot of people who've been in your type of situation who would have asked to take the tests afterwards and I, personally, think that would have been more than fine. What I could not believe were the entitled little wretches who wanted an extra week because they were going skiing in Vail the week before an exam/paper due and felt the prof should either let them take/turn it in late or(!) change the due/test date just for them. All because "I won't have time to study/write it" over the weekend.

I am not saying that other people shouldn't ask for extensions or are evil

Oh yeah, I wish I'd had the confidence in uni to actually ask for things. Once, I lost fifteen percent on a paper because the lecturer said I'd used double the word limit. Um, no, I'd double spaced it, douchebag. But I didn't question it because I 'didn't want to bother him'. Me six years ago was kind of a tool. More of a tool, anyway.