She filed the internal appeal by telephone on the twelfth of December, which took nineteen minutes, and in writing on the fourteenth.

The internal appeal was denied on the eighth of January 2024.

And on the ninth of January, Jillian Lin requested an independent external review, using the number on page three of a letter from the previous March, and a woman at the consumer assistance programme — a free, state-funded office, four miles from the Lin house, with two staff and a waiting list of about a week — went through the file with her over the phone for an hour and ten minutes and told her which two sentences to put in the box.

The external review decision came on the twelfth of February 2024.