Rant #3,637: School's Out

I present you with my last week's report card:

• My Son's Job Search

After jumping through hoops to find out this information, we found out that the organization that we visited a few weeks ago for job help cannot help us at all.

They evidently sent out two emails--to the wrong address--alerting us to this, which we never received.

And when we were directed to a related organization in our county--one which I called a specific person several.times during the past few weeks--I called again ... I never spoke to the person I called, but someone else there said they can't help my son.

I spent between six and seven hours on Friday calling a list of places "that hire handicapped workers" that we received through another organization.

About a third of the companies on the list do not have a Long Island or even a Metropolitan area presence--as I told the counselor who gave us the list when he gave it to us--and the others aren't hiring or don't think, or don't know, if they are hiring or aren't hiring right now.

And in the current "send me your tesume" environment, I filled out so many applications online for jobs that probably don't exist that the power on my phone went into the single digits by the end of the day.

We have an appointment next week with another organization that is supposedly designed to help people like my son, but he has been part of that organization for years, and they have never helped him, but his information is with Nassau County, not Suffolk, so he has to begin all over again with them.

As I was copying down all the information his new counselor told me over the phone--she called while I was in a bagel shop--she kept on telling me that all.of the information was in a letter, and when I called back because she never told me the time of our appointment, she raised her voice to me, saying all the information was in the letter.

As of today, I am still waiting for that letter.

GRADE: F

• My Own Health

Even though I have an apppintment.in June, I made another one--the second since my prostate procedure in November--because I am still having after effects from that procedure.

The doctor asked what the trouble was, I told him, and he said to me, "From a medical standpoint, you are OK, and I know how frustrated you are, but honestly, there is nothing i can do about [the other symptoms]."

He reiterated thst my prostate was not cancerous, but said it is three times larger than it should be.

He then said that to try to reduce the size, he was prescribing pills for me to take every day, which would reduce the size and thus, the symptoms.

I took several.tests, including an MRI, before I had the procedure, and they all came up negative for cancer.

If the doctor knew from these tests thst I simply had an enlarged prostate and not cancer, why didn't he prescribe the medication rather than have me go through a biopsy, and the resultant troubles I am having?

He knew my family history..My father did not have cancer, either, but in those days, they didn't have the type of pills I was given, so he was operated on for ... an enlarged prostate.

That is how it was done back then, but now, one can bypass any after effects with pills.

Why was I never given this option?

Was my doctor so hell-bent on finding cancer that he put me through a procedure that I didn't need?

GRADE: F-

• My Relationship With My Daughter

?????????????????

You know as much as I do about her, and this is after we spoke a few weeks ago-after waiting for her to contact me an additional two weeks--and she said she would "call me back."

She hasn't.

GRADE: INCOMPLETE, and I am being nice about it by describing it this way.

And I hope you had a happy Valentine's Day and have a great President's Day!