A Final (De)grade

The University of Pennsylvania has failed me.

Not in the academic sense, but in the other academic sense.

I'll clarify: I desire to take the maximum recommended courses as determined by my oncologist, and Penn does not wish to accommodate me. My case was petitioned and shut down, and with it my opportunity to (somewhat) comfortably continue my education. Instead, they have unyieldingly offered me the options of 

-  a full course load (to which my oncologist has explicitly objected ) 

- a part time course load with full tuition AND automatic academic probation (a nice, permanent addition to the academic record)

- surrendering my status and privileges as a CAS student and becoming LPS

- leaving.

The decision to continue to take courses is not a foolhardy one, nor one without some basis of understanding of the limitations of my...predicament. Doctors seem to agree that the practice of being "normal", however one chooses to define it, is essential for maintaining the positive psyche necessary to successfully complete treatment. The University of Pennsylvania has decided that it knows better than my oncologist regarding my health. The mindset: Why don't I just leave them alone to deal with healthier, happier students? Or, more forgivingly, we can assume their actions intended to alleviate. Benevolent intention or not, they have just made me all the more stressed, which according to medical professionals will weaken me, my resolve, and ultimately, my chances at recovery. So thank you, University of Pennsylvania, for placing yet another obstacle in my path to relative normalcy, already cluttered with things like hair loss, overwhelming fatigue, potential infertility, oh and the massive tumor in my chest. Who doesn't appreciate a good kick when they're down?

The combative(read: ornery) nature of this post does not go unnoticed. I would like to blame it on the 30 years I've aged in the past few months. The sort of lethargy attributed to years of simply existing.Though the wrinkles haven't developed (yet), there is a sort of grey that has taken over my eyes in place of the usual glint. I am worn down and embittered. Gravity(multiple references here) has hit physically and mentally.

I understand higher education is a service industry. This is not lost on me. The fact that I have to pay full tuition for part time (and be put on probation) as part of a policy to discourage students from "coasting", when in fact part time is the maximum allowable given that I will have chemotherapy cocktails (aka vicious cell-destroying poisons) circulating my body, accurately depicts this notion. Not to mention, going to class will prove difficult when I am confined to a hospital bed for 3 weeks at the end of term. This is not to suggest I do not find myself capable of completing a part-time course load successfully. This is also not to suggest I seek special treatment beyond the recommendation of my Harvard Medical School-trained oncologist.  I intend to contribute to my classes to the best of my abilities, and I hope to be held to such a standard. I simply ask to be accommodated where accommodation is needed. It's not about sympathy, it's about fairness.

Another frustrating aspect is the guise of assistance they paint upon themselves. Support! Advising! Come to us for this session on x,y,z, we'll help you do x,y,z. File a report! Tell your RA!  The means through which problems are supposed to be solved. Yet, in circumstances these means would most useful (I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest cancer is an extenuating circumstance), they instead choose to adhere to policies and rules that do not acknowledge extraordinary circumstances. They are as black and white as the text in which they are written. To give credit, they do allow one to leave and come back. Or drift off into the world of LPS. But I should not have to choose between going at the full speed I was once able to maintain and stopping entirely. I also should not have to switch into a school of general studies, inconveniencing and potentially endangering to my ability to graduate with my desired major in a reasonable period, in order to accommodate. I should not be penalized (read: put on probation) for desperately trying to continue my education amidst limitations outside of my control.

The policy is unfair and does not support the kind of student it seeks to protect. It fails to consider the needs of the ambitious and determined; the kind of student that demands the challenge Penn is supposed to provide. The kind of student Penn recruits and spits out into the world to make something (exceptional) of him/herself. The kind of student that does not simply "give up" when presented with adversity. This is the stuff of college admissions essays - you should know better. 

So I ask you, University of Pennsylvania, to allow me to do all that I am capable of. Hold me to the standard of excellence assumed when you accepted me (I'm going to assume there was one - go with it).

Here's the plan:

Regardless of what happens over the next few months of surgery, treatment, and hospitalization, I'm going to graduate from the College of Arts and Sciences. Maybe even by my projected graduation date! (I know I'm reaching here.) I would make some sort of statement asserting "you can't stop me," but I feel that would be excessive, and too easily considered a dare. 

I understand that cancer makes the assertion of future goals presumptuous. But I refuse to allow this affliction to define me. I wish you would do the same.

PSYCH001

"Well I looked my demons in the eyes,
laid bare my chest, said 'Do your best, destroy me.
You see, I've been to hell and back so many times,
I must admit you kind of bore me.'" Ray LaMontagne

We're on to biopsy round 3. Pre-surgical testing this week, getting chopped up next week. 

More scar tissue to dance around my purposely deflated(and then re-inflated) lungs, 

more tissue for pathologists to play with under microscopes and various stains. 

Make a pretty picture, please. And a prettier diagnosis. Then Chemo(again!) then a bone 

marrow transplant(I may be donating to myself if all goes well). A series of 3 day hospital stays 

culminating in a 3 week. The remnants of athlete within scream at the thought. Somehow amidst 

this I will act as a student and (student) leader, and maybe a social creature as well. (No promises 

on the last one though.) I don't know why I'm still in this lazy, anti-social mindset. I don't know 

why I don't seek the company of others as avidly as I did in the past. I don't know why my room 

has become as much of a source of comfort as it has a black hole of productive activity. 

The wrong weather can easily deter me from ever leaving my house. No commitment, 

no matter how important or enjoyable, can motivate my movement. 

In these few weeks leading up to my next round, I'm allowed to drink. 

I don't want to drink. 

How cruel. A 21st birthday to be spent spurning bars and their frequenters. 

In what nightmare did this scenario emerge?

The worst of it is, it's starting to bother me less and less. Though not accepting 

this new version of myself hasn't compelled me to be anymore active than it 

has made me anxious, I can't help but think retaining that POV(i.e. the one 

that condemns my fatigue for laziness) is essential in retaining some aspect 

of the former "me". 

An identity crisis, how post-adolescent of me. Right on schedule.

Back to School

Syllabus day. Books are cracked open for the first(and potentially last) time by students eager at the thought of their own gratification. The intellectual curiosity is at its peak in the first few days of roll call and administrative set up. Questions seem easy and open-ended, lacking the "wrong answer" that frightens away participation by even the most audacious of students. The motivated souls sit with pens raised at paper; fingers hoovering over keys. The distraction techniques of later courses have yet to spill onto the screens of the relatively well-slept individuals. 
There is an anticipation that can only be derived from a lack of awareness of what is to come -the impending, the inevitable. Fresher faced and more fancy free than these students have found themselves in recent weeks, they await the instruction with (almost) baited breath at the thought of successful completion. Yet to submit to the stresses of balancing activities, prioritizing actions and commitments, they remain hopeful that their capacity to try will see them through. And it does, often enough - though not necessarily with the all goals and promises made still intact. But who among us can honestly say they have remained untouched, remained poised above the masses with the omnipotence of the most crazed curve-killer? 

Set phasers to stun, it's another semester.

New York

I've been here in better times. I can recall walks and skips and jumps on each unique strip of cracked pavement. When alone, I would be joined by a book. With friends, I would be joined by a drink. I remember sips and bites of the cheap and expensive, with steamy side dishes of gossip and gaiety. It was about exploring the places we'd heard of once or whoever had the cheapest cocktails. We pranced around these streets like nothing could touch us. And nothing did. 

 

And then the days grew shorter as slowly as the last 15 minutes of a work day. Time turned itself over to new arrangements of commitments, based on new priorities. Life was reset to a default found only in novels praised for their ability to "get to the heart of the matter". The dramas, the tear-jerkers, the stories that attempt to speak to the strength of the individual. Adversity is encapsulated in a well known character, character trait, or external force we all know and fear. Human succeeds with the weaknesses of his humanity, we dwell on the miracle, and cheer for the brief fleeting moment we think such things are possible in real life.

I'm sitting in a car, traveling past as an observer. I do not sip or skip on these streets. My stomach is a child on a trampoline after too much cake. Sure, the cake was delicious and the traces of icing around his mouth make him look adorable and carefree. But the bouncing. Oh, the bouncing. Stumbling forward after a bad bounce, he catches himself near the edge. He waits, unsettled by the nearness.

I have this sense of foreboding that makes me want jump up and run as far away as possible. I feel tainted by merely sitting in this waiting room. This room is too full. There are too many people here too much older than me, too exhausted to make small talk with those around them. Let's do roll call. Why are you here? I ate a bad steak. My apples glow in the dark. A rogue vaccine. I'm rich. I'm poor. I'm coughing. I can't. Its growing. Its not. What to do, what to do.