Well. Ain't THAT a kick in the pants?
Mar. 30th, 2011 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogHow was YOUR morning, guys?
We took Tasha, our older dog, in for her physical this morning. The only non-routine part for me was wondering about her needing to go outside way more often lately. She's 11 (or close to it- she was a stray when we adopted her 10 years ago), and the tech asked the right questions about seeming discomfort, blood and such, and I think I convinced her, as I had myself, that she was just getting old, and maybe a little bored.
Then the vet came in- and instantly spotted the growth right above her butt. (How did we miss it? It was completely under her tail, which is always over it and thus blocking our view of it. Ebony got a perfectly good view of it when she sniffed her sister's buttocks following everything, but that's not an angle we two-legged ones generally take;) Dr. L got a sample of it, did all the rest of her workup, even got all of her claws clipped with barely a complaint from the patient, but then we got the call:
It's potentially cancerous- hemangioma perisitoma, if you're keeping score at home- and while it's not especially invasive as such things go, it likely IS the reason the poor grrl has been going outside so much of late, and has been uncomfortable climbing stairs and even abed. The options are to remove it surgically or to just keep an eye on it.
No. There's a third option- the one that we dread, and despair of, and would put ourselves in front of a speeding bus if we could spare her the pain as an alternative, but if we can't, there's the Wisteria Room. I HATE the Wisteria Room.
The girls both now know, and Em will tell Cameron. All are in on the discussion, the prayers, the final decision(s) about what to do. Never mind that the costs of any of them beyond waiting-and-seeing are ridiculously beyond anything we could reasonably do on short notice, but, as with everything else, we'll just have to work that out.
----
In the midst of all this, I was dealing with the bureaucratic nightmare from hell.
Early this year, RIT sent out a friendly little note about deferring payment on the rather substantial parent loan I took out that's paying roughly half her annual freight. We'd need to apply for deferment; this "is typically processed 60 days after the final loan disbursement (4/22/11 for a final spring quarter disbursement)." So no worries, right?
Tell that to the servicer that sent me a bill for the first payment a couple weeks ago. The bill referred to a website I'd last accessed when we did the loan applications close to a year ago, and included a link to the deferment form.
Actions you need to take now:
Important steps you need to take before your request can be completed.
Print the form.
That's right. The whole process has been electronic so far, but to defer your payments, you need to print a form, a non-fillable PDF, and complete it on a typewriter. Remember those? Ribbons and platens and all? I actually found one, which is itself rather miraculous.
Complete Sections 1, 2, and 3. Important: If you wish to postpone payments for an additional 6-month period after your
child ceases to be enrolled at least half-time, check box 3 in Section 2.
The form has four sections, the fourth being the certification that the student is still enrolled in school. (You'd think they'd be able to deduce this fact from the application of a third of their money to, yaknow, THIS SEMESTER, but still. Silly me, figuring that universities and loan servicers would have some efficient way of talking to each other)
Then a fax number is provided for return of the form. Yippy skippy! At least they don't require snail mail or carrier pigeon. Allow ten days for processing and "several days" thereafter for reply.
No reply. Finally, I email THEM- yo! this bill I still have here, what's with THAT?
Sure enough, and no shit, within 20 minutes of the vet call, there's a reply from the servicer:
Your request was processed and denied on March 26, 2011. Your request was denied because a Certified Authorized Official from the students school did not sign the application.
By now, it's what one of Eleanor's onetime co-workers used to refer to as "drive-by shootin' time." I get RIT Financial Aid on the phone, and when they try to blow me off to an assigned counselor who's out of the office, I tell them I want a supervisor, and if necessary his, and if need be hers all the way up to the fucking President whose office I'm gonna occupy if they don't fix this. Instwad, I get Corinne. Corinne is GOOD. She tells me where the form goes, notes who to call to make sure it is processed, and explains that they are now dealing with several different servicing agencies who don't work nearly as well as the one they were all kinda used to. I'm giving them some processing time before resuming my Quixotic quest, but I'm at least optimistic we're gonna get THAT clusterfudge worked out.
Naturally, in between both of those bits? I may have picked up my single biggest piece of business of the year- OR the single biggest time-waster thereof. Fortunately, I've got other shit to worry about that's keeping me from being TOO cynical about that.
We took Tasha, our older dog, in for her physical this morning. The only non-routine part for me was wondering about her needing to go outside way more often lately. She's 11 (or close to it- she was a stray when we adopted her 10 years ago), and the tech asked the right questions about seeming discomfort, blood and such, and I think I convinced her, as I had myself, that she was just getting old, and maybe a little bored.
Then the vet came in- and instantly spotted the growth right above her butt. (How did we miss it? It was completely under her tail, which is always over it and thus blocking our view of it. Ebony got a perfectly good view of it when she sniffed her sister's buttocks following everything, but that's not an angle we two-legged ones generally take;) Dr. L got a sample of it, did all the rest of her workup, even got all of her claws clipped with barely a complaint from the patient, but then we got the call:
It's potentially cancerous- hemangioma perisitoma, if you're keeping score at home- and while it's not especially invasive as such things go, it likely IS the reason the poor grrl has been going outside so much of late, and has been uncomfortable climbing stairs and even abed. The options are to remove it surgically or to just keep an eye on it.
No. There's a third option- the one that we dread, and despair of, and would put ourselves in front of a speeding bus if we could spare her the pain as an alternative, but if we can't, there's the Wisteria Room. I HATE the Wisteria Room.
The girls both now know, and Em will tell Cameron. All are in on the discussion, the prayers, the final decision(s) about what to do. Never mind that the costs of any of them beyond waiting-and-seeing are ridiculously beyond anything we could reasonably do on short notice, but, as with everything else, we'll just have to work that out.
----
In the midst of all this, I was dealing with the bureaucratic nightmare from hell.
Early this year, RIT sent out a friendly little note about deferring payment on the rather substantial parent loan I took out that's paying roughly half her annual freight. We'd need to apply for deferment; this "is typically processed 60 days after the final loan disbursement (4/22/11 for a final spring quarter disbursement)." So no worries, right?
Tell that to the servicer that sent me a bill for the first payment a couple weeks ago. The bill referred to a website I'd last accessed when we did the loan applications close to a year ago, and included a link to the deferment form.
Actions you need to take now:
Important steps you need to take before your request can be completed.
Print the form.
That's right. The whole process has been electronic so far, but to defer your payments, you need to print a form, a non-fillable PDF, and complete it on a typewriter. Remember those? Ribbons and platens and all? I actually found one, which is itself rather miraculous.
Complete Sections 1, 2, and 3. Important: If you wish to postpone payments for an additional 6-month period after your
child ceases to be enrolled at least half-time, check box 3 in Section 2.
The form has four sections, the fourth being the certification that the student is still enrolled in school. (You'd think they'd be able to deduce this fact from the application of a third of their money to, yaknow, THIS SEMESTER, but still. Silly me, figuring that universities and loan servicers would have some efficient way of talking to each other)
Then a fax number is provided for return of the form. Yippy skippy! At least they don't require snail mail or carrier pigeon. Allow ten days for processing and "several days" thereafter for reply.
No reply. Finally, I email THEM- yo! this bill I still have here, what's with THAT?
Sure enough, and no shit, within 20 minutes of the vet call, there's a reply from the servicer:
Your request was processed and denied on March 26, 2011. Your request was denied because a Certified Authorized Official from the students school did not sign the application.
By now, it's what one of Eleanor's onetime co-workers used to refer to as "drive-by shootin' time." I get RIT Financial Aid on the phone, and when they try to blow me off to an assigned counselor who's out of the office, I tell them I want a supervisor, and if necessary his, and if need be hers all the way up to the fucking President whose office I'm gonna occupy if they don't fix this. Instwad, I get Corinne. Corinne is GOOD. She tells me where the form goes, notes who to call to make sure it is processed, and explains that they are now dealing with several different servicing agencies who don't work nearly as well as the one they were all kinda used to. I'm giving them some processing time before resuming my Quixotic quest, but I'm at least optimistic we're gonna get THAT clusterfudge worked out.
Naturally, in between both of those bits? I may have picked up my single biggest piece of business of the year- OR the single biggest time-waster thereof. Fortunately, I've got other shit to worry about that's keeping me from being TOO cynical about that.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 10:46 pm (UTC)Red tape is an amazing thing. I don't know if I am comforted that even a lawyer runs into it and gets frustrated by it, or frightened, if you know what I mean.
I have to apply for my citizenship later in the year, then I will be free of immigration paperwork... the first step had a 14 page application and a 28 page book to help you understand how to fill out the first. Good luck!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 01:37 am (UTC)I don't know if I mentioned it, but I work for a university. Among other works of wonder, I've got a 528-core cluster that can calculate the atoms in a star. An associate handles requests for "sponsored accounts" (people not formally attached to the university who require access to our resources, like visiting professors and researchers). It's PDF they've got to fill out, sign, and fax over. Please use a goose quill and India ink when completing the form.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 02:26 am (UTC)