Naked in School-Kevin and Denise
I was fifteen minutes late getting to first period Civics class and when I got into the classroom and handed my passes to the teacher, she looked me over, shuffled them a few times and then picked up one like one would do with a card from a deck.
“Tuesday. Excuse pass.” Picked another. “Wednesday. Late pass.” The last one. “Monday. Excuse pass. Well, well, Mr Coris, so nice to finally meet you. I think that this is a school record, three consecutive days.” Laughter from the class. “Mr Coris, you don’t have any special news about any school incidents this morning, I hope.” More laughter.
Wow. Seems that lots of staff members at this school fancy themselves as comedians. I wondered if I should respond. Maybe a little humility would be best now.
“Miss Wilson, I’m really sorry; I wish I could start this week over again and not miss so much of your classes. It wasn’t my choice, believe me, and I’m glad to finally be here at last.”
She gave me a hard look and then smiled. “No apology needed, Mr Coris. Thank you for that very graceful comment, though. You’ll need to get caught up and turn in some work I assigned.”
“Oh, sorry, yes, I did that; here it is,” I handed her the papers.
She accepted them with a strange expression, glanced at the sheets, and looked at me.
“Thank you... um... well, these look good... ok, please find a seat and we’ll continue the class.”
Hmmmm. Obviously she was surprised that I came to class prepared. In all my other schools, I would have never dared to come to class unprepared. Is this how the American education system teaches its kids?
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, thankfully. I was able to concentrate on learning and actually began to enjoy the classes and the contributions of the students in these much larger classes.
At lunch our core gang assembled again and I thought of Dan’s email. After a quick bite of real food—I was brown-bagging now and just buying milk and fruit—I checked my email on my mobile.
“Hey guys, listen. I just heard from my overseas contact; he’s giving the problem to an IT person about whom I recall has a great rep. My dad said if you give him a computer problem, he’ll take care of it, no sweat, and do it well. I should hear from him soon.”
I also had a response from Bob. He said that he’d get right onto the background check and that his firm’s letter to the school district about the ADA warning had been delivered that morning. He said that Denise’s medical letter established her claim and that I should be prepared to produce a similar document that covered my own disability from a physician. I recalled that I only had a doctor’s report, not a statement of disability. I wrote him back and told him so; that I would need to get a doctor’s appointment really quick to get a disability diagnosis.
I mentioned my morning meeting with Fletcher and outlined what we discussed and then the group picked up yesterday’s discussion of our planning for next week when my mobile buzzed. Who’s ringing me, I wondered. Not many people outside of school have my number. Hope it’s not Aunt Helene...
It was actually Bob. “Kevin, can you do a 4 pm appointment?”
“Uh, sure. Your office?”
“No, actually. Friend of mine is a urologist—he’s actually in the med school here and also has a practice. He can see you at 4 and do an exam; have you had that problem looked at recently?”
“Last May. About four months ago.”
“Oh, that’s good; could you bring any records you have and go to his office, it’s at...”
He gave me the address. I thanked him gratefully and disconnected.
~~~~
The call came just as my sixth period history class began. “Attention please. Will Denise Roberts and Kevin Coris please report to the main office. Miss Roberts and Mr Coris. Thank you.”
Denise and I looked at each other. Now what? The teacher gave us an “oh, well” gesture and indicated the door.
“Kevin, what do you think this is for?”
“Dunno—wait, Bob told me that the warning letter was delivered today. Maybe that’s it.”
That was precisely it. We were ushered into the conference room; Dr Fletcher was there with two other people who he introduced as Mr Overland, the district’s lawyer, and Mr Lewison, the school board president.
Dr Fletcher began. “Students, Miss Roberts and Mr Coris, the district just received a letter, naming you two, that says the district is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It charges us with withholding your education. Can you enlighten us a bit more?”
Denise looked at me, I shook my head at her and responded, “I know that this isn’t a legal proceeding but still I don’t want to say much without our lawyer present. What I will say is that this is related to our Program selection. Both of us have a ‘major life disability’ as defined in the Act, which precludes our Program participation. Denise has already been informed that her exemption request was denied and therefore I assume that my own exemption will be denied as well. The nature of our disability absolutely prevents our participation and Denise was told that her only alternate education choice would require that she withdraw and enroll at a private school or be home-schooled.
“According to the ADA, we are entitled to a free public education. Your policy would force us to withdraw. Thus the district would be denying us our legal right to receive a public education and the remedies as listed in that letter would be pursued.”
Mr Overland was staring at me. When I finished, he shook his head and looked at Fletcher.
“I didn’t believe what you told me about Mr Coris. You have my humble apologies.” He looked at me. “Mr Coris, after that statement I’d doubt you really need a legal advocate. That was a legal summary that most fourth-year law school students might have difficulty composing, and you did it on the fly. Ok, I see. Dr Fletcher, what’s this about no exemptions?”
“That’s correct. The district Program office told our Program official that they would not accept any exemption requests as there were no legal reasons, except for cases of diplomatic immunity for non-citizens, to warrant an exemption.”
“So we have a situation where one federal law conflicts with another and we’re caught in the middle. I don’t like this at all.”
Mr Lewison broke in. “Yes, if we get into litigation over this matter, I can see it could become very expensive and result in really adverse public relations. We need to look into that Program exemption rule; I thought that while they were made difficult to obtain, they were possible.”
Dr Fletcher looked at both men. “Are we finished with our students, gentlemen? Can they return to their classes?” They both nodded. “Ok, Denise and Kevin, thanks for your time. I’m afraid that you know all too well about getting your late passes.”
As we left the room, Fletcher was telling them about how many times we—well, I—had needed a pass during the last three days.
As we walked down the hall, Denise looked worried and thoughtful. “Kevin, I’m worried. Is this still going to work?”
“Actually I’m even more optimistic after that session,” I replied.
“Good. If you say so, I guess...”
After school I dropped Denise off at her home and went home to pick up my records. I found the envelopes with my records (note to self. Self: get a file cabinet) and located the folder from my hospitalization and surgery. I flipped it open to be sure it contained the right paperwork and OH! It’s all in Korean! I read through it; ok, I can translate most of it and I assume the unfamiliar words are medical terms I’ll try to transliterate for the doc; maybe he’ll recognize them. Then I left for my appointment.
The doctor was actually waiting for me when I arrived at his office. It seems I was lucky and had gotten a cancellation. He greeted me and we went to an exam room and he began to question me. We went over my records; I read him the file and tried to get through the unfamiliar words. He said that it was enough for him for the initial history, but the labs and other tests could wait for interpretation. He said there was a Korean medical resident in the med school’s cardiology department who could help, so he had the nurse make a copy of my records.
Then he began the exam. When I dropped trou and lowered my briefs, he looked and shook his head.
“Kevin, does it always look that inflamed? It looks a little swollen.”
“Well, maybe it’s the tight confinement plus the heat. Could that be why?”
“Perhaps. Possible. But a little concerning. How long has it looked like this?”
“Well, maybe a week—I left Jakarta a week ago.”
“Hmmmm, well, that might be it, then. Let’s start the exam. Let me know which touches produce which sensations and try to describe what you feel, ok? Standing up first.”
He gently began to manipulate my cock, pressing first lightly and then with more pressure on various parts. The most sensitive was the head; light pressure or rubbing made my legs weak and I had to sit down or I’d fall over. Heavy pressure was outright painful. He went through a number of steps and confirmed the hypersensitivity.
“Ok, Kevin. I’ve not seen this before to your degree so long after your surgery, I’ve not heard about this happening before since it’s unusual to last this long. I need to do a reflex test and a nerve conduction test; these are non-invasive and usually they aren’t painful at all, but in your case...” he trailed off.
He brought me to a different room and had me lay on a table and wheeled over some electronic gear. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details (didn’t understand them anyway) but after the testing he told me his theory.
“So it looks like you’ve got some deep nerve involvement somehow. Your nerve conduction velocities are impaired but you’ve got exaggerated reflex activity. Somehow your penile nerves are getting continual irritation from some source and to get more info about that I’m going to have to get those lab results translated. But I think if we find some way of calming those nerves, we can get good results. I suspect with your being in this condition for—what, two years? ...there’ll be no instant cure, but we’ll see. Your Korean doctors were correct; this condition really does eventually resolve, but it can take a period of time.
“You can dress now. I might need you to come to the hospital for additional tests with equipment I don’t have here, but again those tests aren’t terribly painful. There would be some pain but having those test results will be worth a little pain, ok? Don’t worry about it too much, ok?”
“Dr Worthington, I do need a disability letter for my school. Would you be able to do one before the other tests?”
“Oh, with these exam results I’d have no problem writing it up now. You certainly couldn’t be expected to be able to participate in those Program things the schools are doing now. I’m beginning to see unusual pelvic injuries on boys and girls now as a result of some of the things they’re forced to do and I wonder at the wisdom of that whole idea. I could have your letter with my receptionist by this time tomorrow. Will that be acceptable?”
“Perfect. Thank you so much. And you think that this can be treated rather than taking the ‘just wait’ approach my other doctors took?”
“Yes, I do. Good luck, son. I’ll have my nurse set up those tests and she’ll call you with the possible times. Nice meeting you. Bob Charlesworth thinks very highly of you; give him my regards when you see him.”
“I will, sir. Thanks again.”
This was a very interesting experience, especially his comment about pelvic injuries. Hmmmm. Maybe add a medical section to our site and invite physician comments? Sure. Why not?
When I got home again, I had an email from Iwan Pranata, the IT guru Dan had mentioned. In it, he offered to help set up a site using a server in the Phillippines—he pointed out that there was a major help desk industry there and lots of good support people. He told me that Dan had been in touch with Bob Charlesworth and had learned what we were doing, so he knew about the kinds of privacy and security we wanted for the site. He said he could mask the server’s location by using proxy servers and VPN technology so finding it would be almost impossible; further, the U.S. would not be able to shut it down even if they knew its location. He mentioned that Dan had already given him a budget for the work and I should give him a message to “do it” and he’d have an account set up on our own dedicated server within a day.
I shot him a message: “Thanks! Go!”
Then to bed. Another exhausting day. I really need to find the time to get back to my taekwondo training again. I miss it a lot. I need to ask Bob where he goes. With those thoughts I fell asleep.
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