Fighting the System

First of all, I have to get it off my chest - Redskins won! Okay.

I make a living billing insurance claims and fighting the system to help people obtain their medications. That said, I have found it easier and easier every year to "grow a pair" as one pharmacist calls it and put up a fight. And every quarter in school, my understanding of the law grows. The combination of fast coding skills with greater understanding of the law has made my interpretations in Political Science and law classes easier as well.

My stepson was recently a victim of discrimination, intentional or not, by the one person on his school campus that should be his advocate - the school nurse. I met with her in September when she admitted to me she had no experience with diabetes and knew nothing about it. I told her to simply follow the same protocol as last year, and she assured me she would "brush up" on diabetes. Last week, she called my husband's ex and accused us of not feeding him or providing him with medication on a daily basis. This all came about because my step-son had a packed lunch that day and chose to play basketball at lunch time and eat his lunch later (on a day after an away-game when he checked his supplies out of the office). Then she asked her to take time off of work to come in without us and sign an illegal contract regarding his blood sugar testing.

The nurse then told us that his teachers were concerned he was missing too much class for testing, and that he was failing two classes because of it. I challenged that, because he shouldn't be eligible for sports with failing grades, and so she blamed the "misinformation" on my husband's ex. And later that night we found out that she was calling him out of class on both days of the week she's there to ask him questions about diabetes and lecture him about blood sugar, which is a big DON'T in the world of Juvenile Diabetes. Do you see where I'm going with this? To make a reeeeally long story short, my husband adressed our concerns with the batty nurse, the violation of trust by the school, and I adressed every violation of the law that occured. Tag team. Technical verbal bitch slaps. And finally after a long talk of excuses and intentions, got an apology from the Superintendent and a promise it won't happen again.

But the bigger picture is that, Gregg, Mo and others my age, Mark said Bullshit to Mr. Johnston (remember him - Marysville Junior High?), Mr. Johnston started in about respect, and I told him respectfully and in very legal terms that in this case the harsh words were appropriate. Or in other words, suck it. That's right, we did it for the kid, but I got vindication for Mo, myself and others who were disrespected by a certain menapausal teacher, and then given ISS from Johnston so many moons ago -all in one meeting.

We also got a promise we won't have to deal with harassment from the nurse any more, or with the youngest's hearing accomodations either. In fact, everything should run smoothly from now on. Now about the WASL, the "new math" and the new numbers grading system...