Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Two weeks into my first year of the Fall 2014 semester, I started to come down with the flew. By September 26th, I checked into Hotel Dieu Hospital because by this time I had become exceedingly more ill. I was short of breath, began coughing up blood, had the chills, and a sore throat that was progressively getting worse. The doctor was unable to pin point what exactly was causing these symptoms, so told to me to stay well rested and take over the counter medicine to help with it. The doctor did prescribe me with Ventolin to help with the coughing. However, as the weekend came to an end and the new week progressed, my symptoms began to get worse and now started experiencing high fevers during the night. The fevers would last into the morning and is when the muscle aches would begin. These symptoms stayed consistent up towards the end of October.
Now home for the Holidays, I began to feel the onset of a flew in the way it began during the beginning of the semester. I checked myself into a local walk in clinic in Halifax, NS, to see if they could find anything, but nothing. I stuck with a sore throat, cough and a runny nose for the remainder of the December break and stayed with it when I came back to Kingston to begin the Winter 2015 semester. By January 19th, I noticed my cough had gotten worse and on occasion would come across blood in my mucous. Noticing that my symptoms were looking similar to that in first semester, and worried I may get like it again, I checked myself into Kingston General Hospital. Once again, it was uncertain exactly what was going on and how I should be treating it.
At this stage, whatever I had was staying with me and recovering from this did not seem evident. I was now not attending class or even attempting any work because of how bad I felt. It did not seem like it would ever end. My parents, living in Nova Scotia and very worried, convinced me to check back in to Hotel Dieu Hospital on January 29th. This time I was diagnosed with Pharyngitis, but the words mono, pneumonia and strep throat were always being a cause of concern. I was still told to get plenty of rest and drink lots of liquids.
After the January 29th visit, the symptoms kept up and were on daily getting progressively worse. Mentioning this to my parents and the possibility of not being able to make it home for the Reading Week break, I made another attempt to get a final answer to what was going on. So on February 12th, I found myself yet again back in Hotel Dieu Hospital, but this time with an iv stuck in my arm. I was prescribed with penicillin after the visit, which did not help.
I woke up on February 13th feeling the worse I have ever felt. I had to call my mother and tell her I would not be home for the break, so she had emailed residency staff to have them come check on and bring me food throughout the week. So instead, with the little strength I had, I took a heavy dose of Advil and made it to the airport to catch a flight back to Newfoundland. Arriving in Newfoundland that night, my parents now at our house in NL for my grandfather¿¿s funeral, my father prescribed me with antibiotics and finally something seemed to be working. I managed to gain some strength back and felt like I was on the path to recovery. Although the antibiotics made me feel much better than the other meds I was taking, it was only temporary. Although I would only get bad once or twice during the week after I came back from the February break, the symptoms I had been experiencing this whole year stayed with me until the end of School.
I can¿¿t stress how bad I felt, coming into a University I have had my heart set to since grade ten and experiencing first year being sick the whole time. I considered dropping out after first semester, but I just could not let myself do that. It was a good decision not dropping out because during second semester I took my first econ course and realized the science degree I was trying to obtain was not for me. I spoke with an academic advisor and made the judgment call to not write the MATH 121 exam because of how behind I was and instead redo it in 2nd year with a healthy mind and body because it is crucial for my ECON degree that I am now doing.