Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),
I am appealing to waive the 21-day appeal deadline. I had not been able to appeal at the time because I was unaware that it was possible to appeal a grade and I was experiencing a lot of anxiety, so much so that it disabled me from giving the course in question (MATH 112) the focus it needed for me to do well in it and from acquiring the knowledge necessary to make an appeal. The anxiety revolved around many issues, one of the main ones being medical anxiety. I found a lump in my breast and due to my sister being diagnosed with cancer a few years back, I had a mounting paranoia of what it could be. The counsellor I saw in first year (Nadia) was aware of this anxiety, and she encouraged me to book a physician¿¿s appointment to get checked out, and she wanted me screened for depression/anxiety. I thought a great deal about dying, which I discussed with Nadia, and about how my overbearing fear of death was crippling me from doing any math (my thought process was something along the lines of, ¿¿if they tell me I have cancer and I have to undergo chemotherapy and die a painful death in a hospital bed, what¿¿s the point¿). In addition to medical anxiety, I had performance/perfectionist and social anxiety ¿¿ I would wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat because I was so panicked about not meeting expectations, if I could even sleep at all. I was also dealing with other issues at the time. I did not have much of a support system. I suspected that my father was cheating on my mother, and with my sister being autistic, my mother was under much pressure and trying to help out with these familial issues affected my schoolwork. At the end of first year, I tried to book an appointment with my family doctor back in Mississauga. I then learned that I had been taken off the roster and was therefore no longer her patient. This ensued much panic and anxiety because if I did not have a family doctor, how was I going to see what was going on with my health How would I know when I would die This extreme fear of pain and death consumed my mind and gave me very little time to myself to learn about the appeal process and submit one. These issues did not get much better in second year ¿¿ I went to counselling; I was still experiencing extreme anxiety along with an ennui about life. During November 2015, my aunt had been diagnosed with cancer. I discussed it with my Jacobean Shakespeare professor (Brianne Colon). This, of course, heightened my anxiety about the lump in my breast because they always tell you that cancer runs in families. Halfway through my second semester, my aunt passed and her funeral was held. I told my Children¿¿s Literature professor (Irene Mangoutas) about this because I was finding it impossible to focus on my essay and support my family through the whole ordeal. At the end of my second year, my mother was able to find me a new family doctor, who sent me for a biopsy in June 2016. I was so preoccupied with the whole situation ¿¿ because of having medical anxiety, I had a magnified fear of needles and anything that had to do with the field ¿¿ that I had neither time nor drive to learn about the appeal process. The results showed a benign fibroadenoma. I went in for the surgery in July, and received the follow-up results in August, which showed that it more likely to be a phyllodes tumour, which is more serious on the spectrum due to higher recurrence rates. Mine was benign, but the tumours exist on a spectrum, and it would be fatal if it returned malignant. I met with my surgeon in October of 2016, and she recommended that I have a second surgery to go back to get the margins re-excised. If I do not have the margins re-excised, there was a 20-25 chance of it coming back (and constantly having to remove recurring lumps would leave me with a deformed breast, which is why many patients who have recurring phyllodes tumours opt to have a mastectomy, which I want to avoid because I already have issues with body image and low self-esteem and that would simply make it worse). These are ongoing issues and I am being consumed by the anxiety which makes it hard for me to pay attention to my courses ¿¿ I am going to schedule the second surgery for December and I have booked an appointment to see one of the clinic doctors at Queen¿¿s in order to get a referral to a psychotherapist.