[nagdu] Depressed and Discouraged

[Elizabeth Rene]

Gail, I wonder if there isn't a way to circumvent this dorky doctor problem.

I think the Client Assistance is the appropriate legal path if the doc is 
employed by Kansas' Blind Services Department, but isn't it almost a cliché 
that blind services departments are unresponsive to their constituencies?

I think that might be the appropriate administrative route, but there might 
be a shorter one.

I don't know you at all, and certainly don't want to intrude or crowd you, 
but might I call GDA to float the general question of what someone should do 
in your situation who is applying to GDA?

I've known the training director since 1977, and the admissions director 
since 1998.  I keep in touch with both pretty regularly, and think I might 
have some street cred.  Guide dog schools are private philanthropies, not 
government agencies.  They have their guidelines, yes, but they admit you if 
they want to.  Their goal is to help you be independent, not to dole out a 
scarce public benefit per bureaucratic edict.

What would you say?

I laughed when I read your comments re the canine sigh in church.  I think a 
well-timed raspberry during one of those pregnant pauses in the pompous 
pastor's sermon might be in order--in the fantasy world of our dreams where 
holy men take a prophetic hint from God's giggly Holy Spirit.

Even Jesus learned something from a dog--that even they get the crumbs that 
fall from the children's table.  The Saraphoenecian, foreign-born woman who 
stood up to Jesus with that line when he told her his ministry was only to 
the Jews woke him up to his call to universality and the diversity of his 
flock.  He liked what she told him, and healed her daughter as asked.  That 
kind of encounter is what fuels my faith.

Take heart,

Elizabeth