This has been one fucked up week.
Last Saturday, I was writing the (damn good) update you would be reading right now, had I not been interrupted by the following event: shitting blood. Not good! This only happened once before, and that incident has significant relevance. At the age of five months, I experienced an intussusception. This occurs when part of the intestine folds back into itself like a collapsible telescope, cutting off blood flow to the affected area. Without treatment, the intestine becomes necrotic, and the patient dies within 2–5 days. In civilized nations, it can be detected early and treated easily with no lasting effects. Usually. In my case, it was not detected early; the doctor misdiagnosed me with some minor ailment and sent me home. A day later, my condition hadn't improved, so my mother took me back to the hospital. This time, we actually got some doctors who knew what the hell they were doing, which was good because I now had a systemic infection in addition to the bowel obstruction.
One doctor warned my mother that he'd never seen a child survive such a severe illness. Boy, was he surprised. I underwent a course of antibiotics so intense they turned my teeth yellow, and had several hours of surgery to remove three and a half feet of gangrenous intestine. They sewed the good parts back together—this will be important later. I was practically comatose for a few days, but afterwards, I recovered without much impairment, and experienced no more major medical mishaps since. That whole thing was a lot worse, and this won't be another "that time rmuser almost died" story. Of course, I didn't know that at the time, so I was pretty freaked out about the Mysterious Internal Bleeding. And this time around, I'm not young enough to forget the entire experience. Unfortunately.
I didn't realize it was blood at first. This had never happened before, and it was very dark, almost black. I wasn't even sure whether it was something to be concerned about, as there were no other symptoms. On Monday afternoon, we went to The Clinic to see Dr. Smith, who, for the record, is a hero. He confirmed it was actually blood, but without any other symptoms to narrow it down, it could be caused by nearly anything. In fact, due to the copious amount of blood (!), he wanted me admitted to Hospital One immediately for a colonoscopy. That wasn't going to happen, as there were (supposedly) six people ahead of me waiting for a bed at Hospital One, so I was sent for a blood test to determine whether I should go directly to the ER, or wait until tomorrow for an available bed. This was the first time I can remember having blood drawn, but definitely not the last!
Everything came back normal, so we went home, and the Mysterious Internal Bleeding actually subsided. For this reason, Hospital One elected to cancel my "reservation" on Tuesday, and gave me a list of gastroenterology clinics to contact. While attempting to schedule an appointment, I discovered something interesting: gastroenterologists treat patients who are either under 18, or 21 and over, placing me in a retarded bureaucratic grey area. The nearest clinic that would treat me was Drs. Jones and Robinson, who were in another state, and they couldn't see me until Thursday afternoon. Around midnight, the mystery shitblood decided it wasn't going to wait, and we proceeded to the ER. Tuesday bled seamlessly into Wednesday, which soon became the absolute nadir of the week, and unquestionably one of the worst days of my life.
The waiting room was surprisingly calm, and I got a bed in the ER within an hour of arrival. Funny thing, one of the staff came to ask the usual questions and I kind of accidentally came out atheist to my mother.
"Do you smoke?"
"No."
"Drink?"
"Nope."
"Religion?"
"None."
"Well... but... he's..."
Like it was just another bad habit. "Do you religion?" I mean, it's late, I'm in the ER bleeding internally, and I just didn't prioritize shoring up that particular rampart of bullshit. Luckily, my mom is a decent person who won't give me trouble about it when I'm in such a situation. She was more upset when they told us they had plenty of beds available yesterday! Major communication issues going on somewhere along the line. Anyway, I got an IV drip, and they dragged a needle back and forth under my skin like a metronome as they tried to draw blood, but kept missing the vein. Once they finally extracted some, they noticed my hemoglobin had dropped by one unit since Monday, though it was still within normal range. I was sent for red blood cell scintigraphy to check for Meckel's diverticulum, or any major GI bleeding. During the procedure, technetium-99m was injected as I lay under a large metal scanner, and it soon became visible on the monitor as numerous flickering white and grey dots in the shape of my lower abdomen. It seemed very low-resolution, but the stomach, liver, kidneys and bladder were clearly discernible. They found no evidence of a major bleed, which was good. What happened next was not good.
To check for any stomach bleeding, they ordered a gastric lavage. This involves inserting a nasogastric tube to irrigate the stomach, remove its contents, and look for blood. If you haven't experienced this, you're incredibly lucky—it's very difficult to convey how much it sucks. The moment they started trying to push a tube through my nostril and down my throat, the higher functions of my brain seemed to shut down completely, taken over by sheer terror at the raw sensation of it all. It felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me while I was at the bottom of a deep pool, and my only coherent thought was "I am going to fucking die, choking on my own vomit, surrounded by doctors." It seemed like an eternity, but I somehow managed to marshal whatever reasonable parts of my mind were accessible, and overcame the initial panic reaction.
Of course, it was still incredibly uncomfortable once it was inside. They didn't find any blood, but did that mean they could take it out? Hell no! They wanted to wait for Dr. Jones to arrive, just so he could personally confirm there wasn't any blood in the totally clear fluid removed from my stomach. Awesome! Since they had no idea when he would show up, they took me to a room upstairs. Every time I heard footsteps nearby, I was hoping he had finally arrived, but that was not to be the case. The first person who came to my room was a minister, offering communion. Do they ask your religion just for the hell of it? I appreciated the thought, but I really wasn't in any condition to eat or drink a deity, unless they could send Him in through the tube.
For two hours, I experienced that sensation of having something caught in your throat, and being completely unable to dislodge it. Caught deep within your sinuses, also. It was morning by now, and I'd been awake for nearly 24 hours. Objectively, that's practically nothing in terms of true sleep deprivation, but these were adverse conditions, and my mind was just falling to pieces after the whole experience. Every second that ticked by seemed to drag on forever, and I genuinely believed this was not ever going to end. That's when Dr. Smith showed up—and he's usually off on Wednesdays. Within 10 minutes, he got in touch with Dr. Jones, convinced them to remove the tube, set up an appointment with Dr. Jones at Hospital Two in less than an hour, and had me discharged. I am very fortunate to know this man.
Remember that peculiar age-related quirk of gastroenterology? Well, it turns out Hospital Two is a children's hospital, which meant we had to wait in a room full of babies. Unable to intelligibly describe their myriad afflictions, they resorted to SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF THEIR FUCKING LUNGS. Once we met Dr. Jones, we discovered that he, too, is a hero. He confirmed it was still blood—I hadn't magically begun metabolizing food into cranberry juice—and scheduled me for a colonoscopy and an EGD on Thursday. He ordered another blood test, stat, to check whether my hemoglobin had dropped any further. If so, I'd be admitted immediately; if not, they'd send me home. We soon discovered that in Hospital Two, "stat" actually means "whatever". The blood test would have to wait, as we had to spend a good half hour talking to a financial advisor and signing numerous papers I didn't even bother to read. I was so entirely out of it, I just laid my head on the desk between interruptions, desperately trying to get some microsleeps in. Did I mention we're two of the 47 million US citizens without healthcare coverage? Now that's a pain in the ass.
Somehow, we managed to navigate the financial gauntlet to their satisfaction, and with their vague directions, we semi-consciously wandered through unfamiliar, brightly-colored hallways. It was like flying a pod into the monolith. We located the blood lab, which was in a rather secluded offshoot of the Screaming Infant Waiting Room. That's not entirely accurate—we still weren't certain of exactly where the lab was, as there were two identical unmarked green doors right next to each other. There was a doorbell, but someone else waiting there informed us it was non-functional, at which point my mother sort of flipped out and started pounding on both doors until someone answered—but they didn't even work there. Eventually, the phlebotomist made an appearance, and she was rather concerned about how pale I looked, and my inability to hold my head upright. I was so exhausted, it felt like my brain had liquefied and dripped all over the floor. At this point, I thought it'd be a miracle if I had any hemoglobin left at all. She informed us we wouldn't find out for at least an hour, which was rather puzzling considering the last two tests took less than 20 minutes. Naturally, the place to wait was the Screaming Infant Waiting Room!
Like Ben Stiller trying to fit his oversized suitcase into a plane's carry-on compartment in Meet the Parents, I wedged myself sideways into two adjacent child-sized seats, stuffing my sweatshirt under my head. With fluorescent lights shining in my face, a television blaring Barney the Stupid Goddamn Dinosaur three feet from my head, and wailing babies all around me, I think I may have actually fallen asleep for about 30 seconds somewhere in there. Were I not so tired, my reaction to all this would have been considerably less subdued. While I drifted in and out of consciousness, my mother ventured down to the cafeteria, and found that Powerade is the only drink they sell. In a children's hospital. Amazing. After waiting for over an hour, we were told that my hemoglobin had actually increased. At 11:30 in the morning, we finally went home... to sleep? Hahaha, sleep? Fuck no, that would be too easy!
A colonoscopy requires preparation quite far in advance. Specifically, this involves drinking four cans of Sprite with some variety of horrid doomsday laxative, within 90 minutes. And that's actually a bit of a challenge, considering it also induces nausea. I'd say throwing up repeatedly and shitting bright red watery blood for several hours is pretty much the antithesis of sleep. Of course, once I finally had the opportunity, I found it difficult to sleep very well, as I was rather concerned that I wouldn't wake up after having lost so much blood during the process. These concerns were unfounded, and Thursday arrived uneventfully. Today, I would get my diagnosis, whatever it may be.
Thursday turned out to be much better than Wednesday. That isn't saying much, considering how much Wednesday sucked, but at the time it was quite a stark contrast. Everyone totally had their shit together, which was a pleasant surprise. We went to Hospital Three, right next to Hospital Two, and waited for only a few minutes in a room entirely devoid of babies and other loud things. Once admitted, I got little electrodes stuck to my chest, a pulse oximeter, the whole deal. Before the procedure, Dr. Jones told me he'd treated someone around my age yesterday who had the same symptoms as me, and the same surgery as an infant. In his case, it was caused by an ulcer on the site where the intestine was sewn back together. This was quite reassuring. Then they injected the anesthetic, and the last thing I remember was someone dimming the lights and turning on one of those iPod stereos. It was playing Celine Dion.
I slept dreamlessly, and awoke somewhat episodically. Laying in the procedure room with the lights dimmed. Back in bed, with nobody around. In bed, with my mother sitting beside me. Dr. Jones telling me it's just a little ulcer, right where the intestine was reattached. (Specifically, an ileocolonic anastomotic ulcer, but there's only one other result for that phrase online.) The relief I experienced at that moment is indescribable. The curiosity and stress of the whole situation were much worse than the painless blood loss, but the Mysterious Internal Bleeding had been defanged. It was mysterious no more. He prescribed Prevacid, and said I shouldn't take aspirin or NSAIDs—Tylenol only. Although he said I could have a "normal diet", I certainly didn't take that as a cue to immediately resume eating garbage. I chew slowly and thoroughly now. I take the time to chill out, notice life, sleep without worry, and appreciate every moment that my innards aren't bleeding. And ever since that day, there's been no blood at all.
Update, 2 July 2008: It's been three weeks, and there still isn't any blood. I also don't need to take Prevacid any more. I went to see Dr. Jones for a follow-up today; he wanted to do a test for Crohn's disease, but he thinks it's probably nothing, since I have none of the associated symptoms. I had some blood drawn again, which will be flown to San Diego, home of the only laboratory that does this specific test. Does rmuser have the dreaded Crohn's disease? Find out in seven business days!
Update, 18 July 2008: In case anyone else is looking forward to finding out whether I have Crohn's disease as much as I am, don't hold your breath. They've already sent us the bill for the tests, but they won't give us the damn results. When we called Hospital Two to ask about this, they transferred us to a recording, telling us to leave our information, and they'll look up my results and call us back in... three to five business days. Essentially, fuck Advocate Hope Children's Hospital. Their doctors are decent, but most of them also practice elsewhere, and the rest of their staff appear to be functionally retarded. I shouldn't even have to go to a children's hospital in the first place, and there's no excuse for them to jerk us around like this.
Update, 21 July 2008: Well, it seems the results "do indicate" that I "might" have "something" that's "in line with" Crohn's disease. We're going back to see Dr. Jones in 10 days—at his own office, not the children's hospital. Hopefully that'll narrow this down to "yeah, you probably have Crohn's" or "no, it's probably nothing". Obviously, I'm hoping for the latter. I'm still entirely asymptomatic, and if I do have it, hell, I've had it this entire time anyway. Could be worse.
Update, 31 July 2008: The test (IBD Serology 7) came back positive for Crohn's disease, but for now, Dr. Jones doesn't really want to put it down as anything specific. Usually, Crohn's initially occurs in the terminal ileum, and though this area appeared grossly normal, histology showed inflammation (but without granulomas). The official diagnosis is ileitis, which just means there's some kind of inflammation in the ileum. For the next month, I'll be taking mesalazine, an anti-inflammatory specific to the digestive tract. He wants to see if it reduces that whole chronic diarrhea thing I've been having my entire life (due to missing most of my colon), which may actually be caused by inflammation. In three weeks, I'll have a blood test (CBC/CMP) to make sure it isn't causing any sort of kidney, liver or blood disorders, but my mother's boyfriend is in his 60s and on the same drug for colitis, so I'm not really worried about that. In a month, another visit with Dr. Jones. There's still no blood or other symptoms, and hopefully it'll stay that way.
Oh, and he wrote off thousands of dollars in bills when he found out we have no coverage. He is fucking incredibly awesome.
Update, 28 August 2008: Mesalazine didn't really do anything at all; I'm pretty sure loose stools are just what happens when you're missing that much of your intestine. There still hasn't been any blood or other symptoms. The blood tests came back normal, aside from one part (I think it was MCB) being a bit low, which could indicate a slight iron deficiency, but nowhere near anemia or anything. I don't need to take mesalazine any more, and I'll be on budesonide for the next month to see if it changes anything. It's a steroid that primarily acts on the terminal ileum, with a low risk of systemic side effects. So, we'll see how this goes.
Once again, I'm sorry for the enormous gap between updates, but this one wasn't due solely to my ongoing inability to write. I was also busy preparing for the GED test. I don't typically write about events in my life, but I consider this particularly noteworthy, and it may be useful to others who intend to take the GED test.
Background
The GED test is for people who haven't completed high school, and certifies that the recipient has demonstrated skills at the level of a high school graduate. For some reason, many people find it difficult to believe I didn't finish high school, so here's a summary of my educational experience to date. After kindergarten, we moved to another town, and another elementary school. They gave me a series of placement tests, and decided the third grade would be more appropriate for me than the first grade. This meant I was perpetually around kids who were two years older than me, which made it difficult to relate to them. They regarded me as an anomaly, not an equal, and for this reason, I had very few friends. And even after being advanced two grades, I was still frustrated by the amount of non-educational, excessively repetitive busy work we were forced to do, so I often didn't do it. Much of the curricula was nearly identical to what we learned during the previous year, and I usually learned more by reading at home than I did at school. My grades throughout a given school year typically followed the same pattern: peaking at the beginning, then gradually declining as I grew weary of doing the same things over and over with no apparent benefit. Once I entered high school, this pattern severely worsened for several new reasons.
My first day of high school was the day before 9/11. Two days after 9/11, my mother's husband filed for divorce. He was extremely unpredictable, ill-tempered and outright dumb—he once asked me how to spell "salt". He made a habit of screaming at us for no apparent reason, punching holes in the walls, throwing things, then driving away and disappearing for a few days. And that was before the divorce. After the proceedings began, he still lived with us for 2.5 years, up until the day we lost our house because of his $100,000+ in credit card debt. Living in such a volatile environment while also dealing with the demands of high school distressed me to the point that I began experiencing frequent headaches. This led to numerous absences; at one point, I'd missed over 30 school days in a semester. Because of these absences, I fell behind in my schoolwork, and I nearly failed a few classes. Halfway through freshman year, my family and teachers had a series of discussions and decided the best course of action would be symptomatic treatment: prophylactic headache medication, and psychotherapy.
It wasn't effective, because it didn't address the root causes. This school simply wasn't a good place for me to learn[1], and the situation at home only exacerbated my difficulties. At some point during all this, I entered a state where I felt almost no emotion. I'm not sure if it was some kind of attempt at self-preservation, but I cared about nothing, had little or no interest in school, and generally had no motivation to do anything. However, it's important to note that I didn't become reckless, engage in criminal or promiscuous behavior, drink, use drugs or disobey my parents. It seems like a lot of people in similar situations tend to do that. Instead, I merely withdrew into myself. My academic decline continued throughout sophomore year, and I failed several classes. After sophomore year, I had to attend summer school to make up one semester of English. Even after that, I was still very far behind, and my mother finally recognized that this was only going to get worse. Another series of discussions took place between my family and the staff, and they agreed to allow me to leave the school. I was given the option of following the standard curricula at home and getting a high school diploma, or forging my own path and getting a GED. I chose the latter, because I had no desire to continue doing work for a school I'd left.
In September of 2003, before junior year began, I was officially withdrawn from high school. I was 14 years old. Seven months later, I returned to the school for a few hours to take the ACT, on which I scored a 30. It was my last experience with educational institutions for nearly four years. Unless you're sure you can handle it, it's probably not a good idea to start high school when you're 12.
Preparation
This year, I resolved I would get my GED, among other things that I may discuss in a later update. In a general sense, I've been studying extensively using the internet for over four years, but I didn't know whether the areas I've studied would overlap with the material of the GED. To ensure I was adequately prepared, I picked up the McGraw-Hill GED workbook from a local bookstore for only $19. It's 1100 pages long, with pretests, post-tests and practice tests on writing, reading, math, science and social studies. Most of the space is taken up by lessons in the subjects you may need to review, as judged by the pretests. My lowest pretest score was 77% in math, which isn't actually that bad. To pass the GED, you need at least 410 out of 800 points in each subject, and 2250 out of 4000 total, which is far below 77%. Nevertheless, I fell short of my expectations in this area, so I proceeded to the practice sections. They were very easy to understand, and I excelled in the post-tests and practice tests. I highly recommend this workbook. In Illinois, the GED also has a test on the Constitution, Illinois Constitution and US Flag Code. Southwestern Illinois College has comprehensive Constitution study materials and a practice test.
To register for the test, I had to mail in an application, and $35. I picked the test site and date that was closest, geographically and temporally. On February 22 and 23, I would take the GED at a local community college, about nine miles away. The first day's testing would begin at 3 PM and consist of an orientation session, a demographic survey, and the Constitution test. The second day of testing would start at 8 AM and encompass writing, reading, math, science and social studies.
Day one
Despite the ease of the practice tests, I was pretty nervous on the way there. I suspect most people would be, if their graduation from high school were dependent on only two days of testing. I was even more nervous because we couldn't find the college. Google Maps somehow managed to give us the wrong directions. It's a huge campus, how the hell could you miss it? We actually had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions, and they gave us the same wrong directions! We just drove west until we saw the buildings far off to the left. I arrived at the same time as a busload of young black gentlemen. They were from Boot Camp, a military-style incarceration program for non-violent offenders. They had electronic ankle bracelets. They were accompanied by two armed police officers. Terrific. They and I were the only ones there for a while, so I tried to keep to myself and avoid making eye contact. We were in an open area with numerous desks and eight computers along the walls. There were actual college students there, too. I could only imagine what they thought of having criminals and dropouts in their school. I felt entirely out of place.
Eventually, more people arrived, as well as three test administrators. We were told to form three lines based on which test form we were assigned. The woman in charge, Ms. IC, seemed like she was pissed off just to be alive. I probably would be too, if I had to deal with these people regularly. She listed everything that wouldn't be allowed in the test room, including cell phones. She said we might be frisked tomorrow, just to make sure we weren't carrying any "contraband". Wonderful! I was in the line for form IE, and Ms. IE (who seemed far less pissed off) took my ID card and observed carefully as I signed my name. That kind of sucked, because when I got my ID, I had to sign my name on a very small touchscreen. The signature on my ID looks nothing like my actual signature, as it's much too vertically compressed and just piles up into illegibility at the end. Nevertheless, I was allowed inside. I'm sure my handwriting wasn't too bad compared to that of everyone else present.
Once inside, we were each given a packet of Scantron sheets and sent to our assigned seats. I was lucky enough to be seated between two Boot Camp detainees. They just couldn't stop talking to each other, and Ms. IC repeatedly told everyone to not speak at all. The one on the left frequently, and loudly, referred to her as a "bitch", and called everyone else "dumb motherfuckers". The one on the right asked where I was from, and if I attended any parties. "Parties with beer", he specified. Leftie, who was coincidentally a leftie, was surprised that I didn't finish high school. He said I looked "like some kind of computer geek" who "should be in college or some shit". Dumb and Dumber continued rambling until Ms. IC yelled at them. She was reluctant to begin the orientation, because, as she said, "there's always someone who comes in late and then I have to start all over". Indeed, about five minutes after she started, an obese Muslim woman arrived. She evidently didn't understand English very well, and Ms. IC made it clear that anyone arriving late tomorrow would be turned away.
After the orientation, we had to fill in our names and other information on several Scantron sheets. I assume this was a test of whether or not we were able to pay attention and understand basic instructions during this incredibly boring process, as many other people were apparently unable to do so. Ms. IC threatened to have Leftie removed from the room because he wouldn't stop talking. Once this was finished, there was a demographics booklet for us to fill out. Aside from our basic personal information, it had questions about our income, our employment status, how much schooling we'd completed, why we left school, what subjects we'd taken, our approximate grades in these subjects, and whether we prepared for the GED. Afterwards, there was a short break outside before the Constitution test. Everyone who had already taken the Constitution test elsewhere was allowed to leave. This included all the Boot Camp detainees, and as they were waiting for their bus to arrive, one of the cops was sending bulletins on MySpace.
While waiting for them to let us back in to take the test, I sat down and listened to everything. One girl was talking about how she was two credits away from becoming a paralegal, and was trying to get into a state university, when she found out the high school she'd graduated from was unaccredited. I felt so bad for her. Imagine wasting all that time in high school and ultimately having nothing to show for it. Forget bullying and mental illness, this is what school shootings are made of. She was really nervous about the GED, too. They finally let us back in after repeating the sign-in process, and gave us our form for the Constitution test. Unlike the earlier session, we were hardly monitored at all, possibly because the Boot Camp detainees were gone. S, who had an S-shaped bald spot on the back of his head, and his acquaintance, Coat Guy, were sitting in the row in front of me. They asked me if the test would be difficult, and if I'd studied for it. I shouldn't have answered, because they immediately decided to sit on either side of me. Nobody overseeing the test seemed to have any problem with this.
There were 60 questions on the Constitution test, many of which were copied almost exactly from the online practice test. It was extremely easy, and there were only a few I didn't know the answer to. S and Coat Guy were very obviously copying from my sheet the entire time. I was the first to finish, and they let us leave as soon as we were done.
Day two
I woke up at 2:20 AM, and couldn't get back to sleep. After seeing how easy the Constitution test was, I wasn't so concerned about the remaining tests. I was just excited about finally getting this over with. We got there about 45 minutes early, because now we knew where the campus was. I was the only one there, until the Boot Camp bus arrived. This time, no officers came with them. Many of them were bragging about how many DUI convictions they've received. Spectacular. We went through the same sign-in procedure as yesterday, and we weren't frisked for cell phones. Once we were all seated, Ms. IC decided to shuffle the seating arrangement. Dumb and Dumber were moved far away from each other, leaving me with empty seats on either side. S was moved to sit one seat to my left, and he was quite pleased about this. Ms. IC discovered that someone had written "FUCK YOU" in black marker on the card with Coat Guy's seat number on it, and demanded to know who did it. She also threatened to have campus security remove the next person who talked. By now, I was getting pretty tired of being treated like a criminal for trying to advance my education, but considering most of the people here were actually criminals, I couldn't really blame her.
While Ms. IC was explaining how today's tests would be conducted, Obese Muslim Woman showed up late, again. The test administrators talked to her outside for several minutes, and let her in. Ms. IC then took issue with our attire, and told everyone to remove their hats, pointedly glaring at a girl in the front row who was wearing a bright green hoodie. She pulled the hood back, revealing why she was wearing it. She had a stout cylinder of coiled strands of hair sitting in the exact center of her scalp. It's difficult to describe how terrible this looked; it was like some kind of methed-out, pumpkin-colored bun. Now, my hair is far from glamorous, but if I had something like that on top of my head, I don't think I'd want anyone to see it. Ms. IC and Ms. IE had a brief discussion about whether OMW should remove her headscarf, and decided she shouldn't. Once these issues of seating, profanity, security and headgear were resolved, we finally began the math test.
There were a total of 50 questions, and we could use a Casio fx-260 scientific calculator for the first 25. Unlike the practice test, there were no questions about polynomials or trigonometric functions. None of them even had fraction or decimal answers. Once we finished, we could leave the room and take a break before the next test. Most of us finished with over 30 minutes left. I bought some Fritos from the vending machine, and checked out one of the functioning computers. It was a Micron with a 600MHz PIII and a 20GB hard drive, running Windows XP. The mouse had no wheel, and Internet Explorer was the only browser installed. I checked the positions of my reddit submissions, and tried to access the ABS Java chat, but Java wasn't installed and I didn't have sufficient permissions to install it. MySpaceIM was running, though. I disabled it. The CRT was running at 60Hz, which was extremely irritating, so I changed it to 75Hz. This was boring as hell, so I sat down with S, since he was the person I was most familiar with by now.
I discovered that I wasn't the only one coming up with memorable nicknames for people whose names I didn't know. S referred to me as Fogell. I asked about this, and he explained that Fogell was a character from Superbad. I hadn't seen it at the time, but now that I have, it seems like that nickname is kind of a mixed bag. We exchanged stories of our experiences with the educational system. S was expelled after 8th grade and never attended high school. Phone Girl sat down with us, and showed us several cameraphone pictures of herself making out with various girls. She and S discussed the merits of smoking marijuana in preparation for tests. Apparently, it's helpful as long as you don't become excessively paranoid. S asked whether I'd ever used pot, and upon learning that I hadn't, offered to have all three of us immediately leave the premises in his car and toke up. I declined. In a feeble attempt to find common ground with these people, I asked if they'd ever designed any websites. They hadn't. I don't even really know what kind of answer I was expecting; maybe Fogell was an apt nickname.
The next test was writing, with a multiple choice section and an essay section. I was a bit worried about the essay section, because I don't usually write fully developed essays in less than an hour, and I handwrite perhaps a few times a month. S was worried too, but only because he wouldn't be able to copy from me. I checked out some of the sample essay topics beforehand, and many of them were utterly bland and generic, like "What has been the happiest day of your life so far?" and "How do you define success?" I wasn't sure I'd be able to effectively bullshit my way through such a topic. However, an average of 200-250 words would be considered sufficient, and we'd only have two pages to use. It would be graded holistically on a scale of 1 to 4 in four areas. 2 was the minimum to pass. After seeing some actual GED essays, most of my concerns were assuaged. If someone can write five sentences and pass, this isn't a big deal.
As Ms. IC explained the writing test, we were allowed to view our topics. This was nice, because I could think about it while I breezed through the multiple choice section, and they let us apply whatever time remained after finishing the multiple choice section to the essay section. I received topic N, which asked about one of my past or present ambitions. I was very pleased with this topic, and wrote about how I'd like to become a computational neuroscientist to help find cures to neurodegenerative diseases, because it's something I'm actually passionate about. I used both sides of my single sheet of scratch paper to outline the essay and draft sentences before committing them to the test booklet. I opened with simple definitions of neuroscience and how computer modeling is used in this field, explained my longtime interest in computers and the brain, and described how Alzheimer's disease has affected my family, putting it all in the standard five-paragraph format. S seemed surprised that I was taking so long, and many people turned theirs in before I did, but I wanted this to be good. It came out to around 380 words, filling 1.5 pages. I really hope that some essay grader, jaded by deciphering scribbles about making babies, doesn't just look at it and say "Compu-neuro-what the fuck is this?"
I finished the writing test with about 20 minutes to spare, and moved on to the science test. When Ms. IC announced that the writing test was over, OMW apparently didn't understand. She kept writing for about five minutes until Ms. IC noticed this and told her to turn it in. While I was working on the science test, Ms. IE noticed S was up to no good, and there was a cryptic exchange between them.
"Hey."
"What?"
"You know what."
He was allowed to continue testing. Ms. IE was looking at me, and conversing with another test administrator. The science test mostly involved comprehension of the material they presented, as did social studies and reading. One of the social studies questions was exactly the same as a question in the practice test. It was a political cartoon of the leaders of Israel and Palestine shaking hands atop a house of cards. Every test was easier than the practice tests, and I finished around 2:20 PM. On the way home, my grandfather told me about how he got his GED when he was in the Navy.
Aftermath
Taking the GED tests put me in contact with a subset of society that, most of the time, I could safely ignore. Not anymore. When people see that I have a GED, they'll be thinking of the thugs, the drunk drivers, the attention-deficient, the cheaters, the barely literate, the habitual drug users, and everyone else who couldn't finish high school. The vast majority didn't drop out because school wasn't intellectually stimulating enough, and this experience has disabused me of any notion that people will view me, a GED recipient, as a good person who was simply in a bad situation. I'm checking the mail every day, eagerly awaiting the results which will affirm that I'm about as smart as a prisoner with three DUIs under his ankle monitor.
I still have my class ring. It's like an artifact from an alternate universe, where someone with my name graduated from my high school in 2005. Now, it only serves as a reminder. Stay in school, faggots.
Facts about the GED:
- GED doesn't stand for Graduate, Equivalent, Degree, Diploma, or any combination thereof. It stands for General Educational Development.
- GED recipients are less likely to find employment than high school graduates, and when they do, they earn less than high school graduates.
- GED recipients are less likely to finish postsecondary education than high school graduates.
- 70% of people who take the GED tests fail on their first attempt.
- 30% of high school graduates who take the GED tests fail.
- Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson were able to pass the GED.
1. I must emphasize this wasn't a good school for me. It's located in an upper-middle-class suburb that's over 90% white, and its dropout rate is only 1.2%.
Update, 12 March 2008: I received my GED results today. I got 3710 out of 4000, and scored in the 99th percentile for reading, writing and science. And they actually do call it an Illinois High School Equivalency Certificate.
