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Petition Letter: Hello Associate Dean,

I am requesting to have my courses from the Fall semester of 2018 and Winter semester of 2019, marked as a the Credit Standing (CR), as I had a brain injury during this time (see below for timeline, severity and academic impairment). Having these failed courses removed, would remove my former ¿requirement to withdraw for 1 year¿¿ and consequently remove my current ¿require to withdraw for 3 years¿¿.


I begin at Queen¿¿s in the fall semester of 2018, in the Arts and Science program, with the goal of majoring in Political Science. In high school I was a very academically focused student, maintaining on the honour roll for all four consecutive years while also being involved in many numerous sports teams and clubs within and outside of my high school.

During the summer of 2018, before my first semester at Queen¿¿s, I had also been invited to join the Queen¿¿s cheerleading team for their summer training camps, and was very excited to once again be a student-athlete and have the opportunity to meet senior students before coming to Queen¿¿s.

After only a month of attending fall classes, during a Queen¿¿s cheerleading Sunday night practice (September 31st), I had an accident while attempting a higher difficulty stunt, and sustained a concussion. The following morning, I immediately went to see Doctor O¿¿Connor, the concussion specialist at the Sports Medicine Clinic and was assessed and formally diagnosed.

I also voiced my concerns with Doctor O¿¿Connor about how I was going to maintain good academics, as I was a former patient of his during a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in high school, in which it had taken almost 8 months for me to recover from. I was instructed by Doctor O¿¿Connor to only focus on recovering my brain, and that I would be able to get academic assistance after I was fully recovered and not at risk for damaging my brain further or worsening the concussion.

I was instructed to stop attending all classes and lectures until my symptoms began to improve. In the meantime I began following concussion protocol, which included avoiding all loud or stimulating areas, areas with any kind of bright or florescent lighting, no reading or physical activity, use any technology (due to blue light eye stimulation) and essentially remaining bedridden in a dark room. This was to avoid any further brain damage and to use my brain as little as possible until my concussion improved. During this time I reported to the Sports Medicine clinic once every few days and filled out documentation about my daily symptoms.

After two months of no progress or improved symptoms (beginning of December), I was continuing to become incredibly alarmed about my academics. Throughout the past two months, whenever I had approached Doctor O¿¿Connor about academics, he had just stressed that I needed to focus on getting some kind of improvement on my concussion symptoms before I began worrying about academics, as physical stress and any type of mental stimulation was just going to impair/damage my brain more.

Around the beginning of December, I had a meeting with Doctor O¿¿Connor where I expressed my concerns about academics, as exams were approaching, and I hadn¿¿t handed in any assignments or attended classes since September. At this point, he referred me to an Occupational Therapist, Katie Bala who worked for Queen¿¿s Accessibility Service in the La Salle building.

When meeting with the Occupational Therapist, the support I was offered was updated assignment extensions as well as additional time and private space to complete my exams. Although I appreciated being finally able to discuss academics with a faculty member, I was becoming increasingly overwhelmed at the large list of deliverables that had been accumulating while I had to take time off school, following the concussion protocols. I was also incredibly concerned that not only did I have an extensive list of large assignments to complete, but my brain recovery was stagnate, and I was still having severe concussions symptoms despite avoiding all stimulus and not attending classes.

When I spoke to my Occupational Therapist about these concerns, I was advised to focus my energy on preparing for exams, as these would be more difficult to delay. This was incredibly concerning to me, as following a traumatic brain injury, it is incredibly difficult for my brain to remember even the easiest day-to-day trivial matters. (For example, during a meeting with my Occupational Therapist she needed me to sign and date an extension request. I not only needed to be reminded of the date, and the month, and the year, but when she asked me to name any months in the calendar, or a recent calendar year, I could not even recall any of them.)

By the end of the fall semester, I still had legitimate/outgoing extensions for all course assignments, and had tried to write my exams to the best of my ability. However, my concussion symptoms were worse than ever and it felt unlikely that my brain was going to be functioning well enough within a reasonable amount of time to even begin to take a look at the outgoing assignments that I had missed.

Reflecting back now, it is very clear to me that I should have dropped my fall courses and focused on trying to be able to take courses in the winter semester. But not only was I a very new student to university and wasn¿¿t properly informed this was an option, but due to my brain injury, I was unable to rationalize clearly and didn¿¿t have the ability to make clear decisions.

When the fall term had ended, despite still having very serious memory retention problems and working through severe brain impairment and TBI symptoms, I had written my exams to the best of my ability and still had ongoing/active accommodations approved by all my professors. However, throughout the Christmas break, I never recovered to a point where I could complete the large assignments I missed.

Going into the winter semester, having spent the break trying to improve my symptoms and brain as much as possible, I decided I would focus my efforts on the new semester, and wanted to avoid getting any assignment extensions, and wanted to avoid course work piling up.

My mindset was that in the fall semester I had done exactly what my doctor had instructed of me, and after following instructions and taking the months off for brain recovery, and in the end had not received the academic advice that was needed, that I would attempt the opposite and attend lectures and classes regardless of symptoms and attempt not to fall behind like in the previous semester.

This, of course, was also not a successful academic strategy, as my concussion symptoms became worse than ever before. I began not being about to fall asleep due to the poundings in my head, and in the mornings I would already wake up with a pounding head/ severe headaches before even attending any classes. Due to my brain¿¿s functioning becoming severely impaired, I began to experience severe paranoia and anxiety as well, and had trouble with even day-to-day thinking and problem-solving. Doing any kind of coursework or readings was incredibly challenging, as my headaches were often so bad I couldn¿¿t understand what I was reading, and my working memory and memory retention were incredibly poor.

At this point, I was seeing my occupational therapist multiple times a week and was still being seen by the concussion specialist in the ARC frequently, with no improvement.

In hindsight, it is very clear to me that I should have withdrawn from my courses and that I was not well enough to be in school, however, at the time my brain function and decision-making process were severely impaired, and I struggled with even the simplest day-to-day issues. Additionally, neither my occupational therapist nor concussion specialist discussed with me the option of withdrawing from school, and this had never explained to me that it was even a possibility.