I work for a university where I teach freshmen writing and I handle the department's computer needs. In order to understand part of my struggle with Hodgkin's you have to understand a little about how universities work.

When I was first diagnosed with Hodgkin's, I was not considered a full-time employee of the school. All universities employ adjuncts, people who have the degrees required for teaching, but for some reason, don't have a full-time position yet. Some people are semi-retired, but enjoy teaching too much to stop; some people have spouses who work in that town (or even that university) and the school just doesn't have a full-time position for that particular specialty open; some adjuncts don't have the publication and experience record yet to land a full-time job. There's a myriad of reasons that someone will take on adjunct work. The problem is that the pay is terrible. My school pays adjuncts extremely well, much above the national average, but it's still not much of a living wage, especially after all of the schooling required to even get to the adjunct level.

Most universities pay around $1200 to $1800 per class taught. Most professors (depending on the field, experience, their realm of research, how many committees and administrative duties they have) teach about three classes a semester. Most adjuncts try for 3 to 5 classes a semester just to make ends meet. I've known a few who teach 5-7 classes for several universities within just one semester. The amount of time required to do 5-7 classes in my field is about 80-100 hours a week. 3-5 classes in my field would be around 60-80 hours a week. (This, of course, depends on the types of assignments that the university requires that teacher to make or that the particular instructor feels are necessary to have students complete the objectives of the class.)

Adjuncts are not offered benefits at most schools. Some universities have unionized and benefits are available. Most universities do not offer benefits at all. Most universities won't even let the adjuncts use the health center on campus.

So, when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, I was still working as an adjunct. I made under $20,000 that year. Somehow, I was supposed to pay for all of these expensive procedures.

My immediate boss was wonderful. That person campaigned long and hard to get some benefits to me right then. We already knew that I would be hired full-time starting in fall 2000. It seemed somewhat callous not to just offer the benefits now. The university refused my boss and said no.

You have to understand what a huge bureaucracy a university is. The faculty may number as much as a thousand members. The staff will be huge. It's unusual for any bureaucracy to notice individuals instead of the numbers in a database. I was disappointed when I found out that there would be no help from the school, but I was not at all surprised nor do I find it unusual in any way. This is how big business tends to work. I don't condemn them.

I did find it grating, however, to hear what a wonderful community this place was, as I did hear constantly during that insurance-less time. The school claimed to be benevolent and interested in helping others, but refused to even give me insurance. I admit that I'm still pretty upset about the hypocrasy of it.

But, hey, I'm employed there now, full-time with benefits. The insurance packages offered included (by January 2001) all packages which did not exclude pre-existing conditions. I eventually got lucky. How many other people never do get insurance?