Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Academic),

I am appealing to drop the in class courses of my first year winter semester 2019. My Winter 2019 semester consisted of four in class courses. DEVS 100A Canada and the Third World, POLS 110B Intro to Politics & Government, PSYC 100B Principles of Psychology, SPAN 112 Beginning Spanish II.
Throughout my high school career I was a very competitive athlete which required me to train more than 5 times a week. In my final academic year of high school and throughout the summer before attending Queen's I was training at a higher level of intensity in order to be prepared for the final tryout for the Women's Varsity Soccer Team at Queen's.

Unfortunately, I injured my knee during a training session in the summer of 2018. Immediately, I was placed on the waiting list to receive an MRI which took 2-3 months. Afterwards, the result took approximately two weeks to come in. Once the results were in, it was evident that I tore my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in my left knee and I needed surgery. Unfortunately, the waiting list for ACL surgery is extremely long and Dr. Oliver (my surgeon who had the shortest wait time) only performed surgery two days a week. On December 21st 2018, I had surgery on my ACL.
After the surgery was complete I was immediately prescribed and required to take opioids for pain and antibiotics. I was required to take four different medications for up to a month (HYDROMORPHONE HCL, TRAMADOL HCL, TRAMADOL/ACET, CELECOXIB). During this time I experienced almost every side effect that one could imagine. I dealt with nausea, dizziness, sleep problems, stomach pain, sweating, and etc. Once I finished my prescription I began to feel an excruciating amount of pain and an abundance of negative emotions. Considering this was my second ACL surgery (the first one being on my right knee in 2016) I did more preparation to handle the emotional and physical pain that I would be going through this time. I did a week's worth of readings for all my full year courses in order to lighten my work load for the second semester and I built myself up emotionally through meditation and journaling. However, this surgery was completely different. I was in so much pain to the point where I couldn't get up to use the washroom. I lost my appetite, my desire to practice my hobbies and I didn't even want my friends or family to visit me.
When I went back to live in residence I had no support system. My family was back home and I already felt out of place at Queen's to begin with. My roommates were both struggling with severe depression and other mental health disorders and were not understanding of my circumstances. I am aware it was not their job to help me, but simple things like bringing me a TAM when they went to get themselves one was something they were not open to doing.
My roommate conflicts definitely began to escalate during the second semester. One might think that this issue is a separate one. However, both problems definitely intersected. As I mentioned above, my roommates had mental health problems. I definitely respected them and tried my best to be supportive towards them. However, it became extremely difficult supporting
their emotions and my own during such a difficult and stressful time. It got to the point where the room had to be pitch black throughout the day, there was food and used feminine hygiene products on the floor, and I was being threatened for turning our lights off at the agreed lights out time. I did involve the Don, however it escalated to the point where she said I should move out.
Second semester was about to begin and I was still required to wear a straight leg cast and use at least one crutch. I was still required to attend physiotherapy twice a week. I was not able to walk outside in the winter conditions and a slip on the ice or another student bumping into me could seriously injure my knee. I was barely able to stand in the shower by myself, let alone walk to and from class with hundreds of other students that were rushing past. Considering that Kingston had a lot more ice than I expected and I lived in residence, which required me to walk to the bathrooms, dining halls and classes.
Fortunately, I was able to use Academic Consideration to remain another week at home, but that was not enough. I still could not walk or complete simple tasks by myself. Along with, PSYC100 was a course that required participation in the lectures (which I requested to be exempt from) but the professor said that the course was already designed to allow a student to miss two lectures and have those marks dropped. I was still in a cast the
I did not drop the courses prior to the week 8 deadline for a few reasons. Firstly, three of the courses I took in first year were full year courses and I already spent 12 weeks working towards those credits. Second, my family is very strict with academics and they made it clear that dropping a semester full of courses was not an option. Thirdly, the majority of my first year tuition was funded through scholarships and student loans. Many of those would have been taken back if I did not remain a full time student at Queen's for the entire year.

Thankfully, now I have fully recovered from my knee surgery and am no longer on medication. While I sometimes still struggle with the concept of not being able to play competitive sports at the level I desire, I have taken the steps to try and strengthen my mental health. I have reached out to professionals regarding strategies for maintaining a healthy balance of academics and physical activity, as of today I have been able to maintain. I am also checking in with an online support system regarding my emotional wellbeing. I have lightened my course load for the upcoming years by taking online courses during the summer to prepare for any unexpected trauma that might occur due to the surgery (emotionally and physically).
I believe that I am now better equipped with external resources and from Queen's in order to be prepared for a situation like a knee surgery. I definitely think that my future years at Queen's are going to be better because of the new resources I have been using and will continue to use. My first term marks of second year reflects that the strategies I have been implementing are effective as my term GPA increased by an entire point.

Sincerely,

Mykaela Toth