Petition Letter
Coming to terms with an illness, and personal inadequacies, is difficult no matter what age or life stage they arise. For me, my illness didn¿¿t present itself until I was on the cusp of adulthood. I already had a fairly stable self-identity, and with my diagnosis I was forced to reexamine who I was, a process that took time. At the end of high school, I started having seizures, and was later diagnosed with a benign brain tumor. I was put on anti-convulsant medications, and I was determined to live my life as if nothing was wrong. I went off to work at an overnight camp that summer, and started Queen¿¿s the following fall. First year was difficult, as I was adjusting to life with my diagnosis and also to living far away from home.
As first year progressed, the medication I was on became less and less effective at controlling the seizures. I took the first semester of second year off and underwent brain surgery in October of 2010. Fortunately, the surgery completely cured the seizures, but I still had to come to terms with what had happened. Throughout this time, I tried to carry on through life as if all was normal ¿¿ but it wasn¿¿t. While optimism enabled me to get through this difficult time emotionally, it was not enough to save my academic performance. What happened was complex and difficult, and despite my hopes at retaining normalcy, there was one area where it was simply not possible, and so my school work suffered.
After the surgery, I was slowly taken off the medications, which took over a year. Throughout this time, I was so grateful to have my life back again, I was making the most of my remaining two years at Queens and getting involved in as much as I could. The more I became involved and active around campus, the more I saw how different I was from my first year self, the person who was sick. Finally, at the end of last year, I had an epiphany. I was looking at my transcript from the last two years and realized how vastly different it was from that of my first year. I realized, a realization that took a long time to come to, that my illness did have an effect on my personality and memory and behaviour, and all of this had an effect on performance. So I am asking you to allow me to appeal these grades. I am asking you to waive the 21 day restriction. While I am fully aware that I am long past the time limit, I was not able to make this appeal within the time limit. Immediately after my first year, I was focusing on my illness (which was getting worse) and in the time since, I have undergone a lot of personal reflection to get to a point where I can accept my weakness during the time when I was ill, enough so to admit it and try and do something about how it affected me and my performance in first year at Queen¿¿s.
As first year progressed, the medication I was on became less and less effective at controlling the seizures. I took the first semester of second year off and underwent brain surgery in October of 2010. Fortunately, the surgery completely cured the seizures, but I still had to come to terms with what had happened. Throughout this time, I tried to carry on through life as if all was normal ¿¿ but it wasn¿¿t. While optimism enabled me to get through this difficult time emotionally, it was not enough to save my academic performance. What happened was complex and difficult, and despite my hopes at retaining normalcy, there was one area where it was simply not possible, and so my school work suffered.
After the surgery, I was slowly taken off the medications, which took over a year. Throughout this time, I was so grateful to have my life back again, I was making the most of my remaining two years at Queens and getting involved in as much as I could. The more I became involved and active around campus, the more I saw how different I was from my first year self, the person who was sick. Finally, at the end of last year, I had an epiphany. I was looking at my transcript from the last two years and realized how vastly different it was from that of my first year. I realized, a realization that took a long time to come to, that my illness did have an effect on my personality and memory and behaviour, and all of this had an effect on performance. So I am asking you to allow me to appeal these grades. I am asking you to waive the 21 day restriction. While I am fully aware that I am long past the time limit, I was not able to make this appeal within the time limit. Immediately after my first year, I was focusing on my illness (which was getting worse) and in the time since, I have undergone a lot of personal reflection to get to a point where I can accept my weakness during the time when I was ill, enough so to admit it and try and do something about how it affected me and my performance in first year at Queen¿¿s.