Petition Letter
(Please see the attached Word Document File named 'Appeal Letter Sept 2014' for the properly formatted version)
September 14, 2014.
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing this appeal in regards to my incomplete grades in Physics P16 and Physics 212 due to extenuating circumstances. I have been suffering from the after affects caused by my concussion, which has rendered me unable to complete coursework, as my symptoms surrounding the trauma have become psychomatic, which has made even recounting events for the following timeline a harrowing experience.
On the night of April 20th I was sitting in my room studying for my last two exams when I leaned backwards and fell, hitting my head on the metal radiator in my room. I had a big bump and symptoms of a concussion. Everything I can remember from the incident is recorded below. I remember being so dizzy that I could not sit up, lay down, or walk without holding my head. When I went to brush my teeth, I had to hold my head still because the motion made me feel like vomiting.
I remember realizing that I might have a concussion, but I was so fatigued due to my injury that I was not thinking clearly. At this point, my exams were my most pressing concern, and I did not think I needed medical attention. I was not in a position to make such a judgement call, but regardless, I went to bed after attempting to continue studying. I went to KGH the next morning because I was extremely disoriented. I had never been so perpetually dizzy and nauseous. Any movement caused severe dizziness and nausea. In addition, I was so unsettled by my injury that the only thing I could remember was that I had hit my head, which, aside form my name, was the only source of information I was able to provide the doctors and nurses.
I could not remember my cell phone number or my family doctor¿¿s name. I gave them the wrong cell phone number, but did not realize what happened until a week later, when my memories of the incident began to return. However, as I had been diligently studying for my exams, I did remember that I was set to take them. I sent emails to my professors explaining what happened. However, the act of writing the e-mail exacerbated my debilitating head pain, and was too strenuous to have attempted so soon after my injury. As a result, I had a vomiting episode in the waiting room of the hospital.
As most of my memories of the incident have returned, months later, I can now recall the extent of my disorientation. I was very confused as to how I got home, and found myself unable to remember moving from room to room. I was unaware that I was relaying the same information over and over. Additionally, I was unnerved and convinced I had misplaced things for days afterwards, because I could not remember moving them only hours earlier. Family members and my housemates have reported that I acted irregularly in this time. I was very irritable and unpredictable, and I could not clearly convey ideas to my other, very concerned housemates because my grasp of temporal events was extremely unreliable. For example, in the days after my concussion, my housemates kept encouraging me to go to the hospital, and I rebuffed their concerns. However, I did so because I could not articulate that I had already been to the hospital.
Effects of concussion:
I was unable to study during May, June, July and August due to continuous problems with concussion symptoms namely sleep, headaches, nausea, dizziness, and memory problems.
Sleep:
Immediately after suffering the concussion on April 20th, I slept twenty hours per day for an entire week. Then I could not sleep at all and it took until the end of June before I was sleeping normally. This is typical for concussions. Sleep is essentially to recall information needed for the two exams and thus I could not write the exams during the first month of the summer term.
Screens:
I was referred to a neurologist who prescribed me sleeping pills on June 2nd, however I still could not write the exams during June due to dizziness from screens. This sensitivity to screens improved, but even the last week of August when I wrote the first draft of this appeal letter I became dizzy after using a screen for a prolonged amount of time. With this dizziness from screens, I could not study for the exams over the Summer Term.
Memory:
I continue to have trouble with memory after a sustained mental exercise. In May, when my parents were emailing the arts and science department to arrange the incomplete grades for me, I could not remember the names of the professors who taught me Physics P16 and Physics 212. Lectures where I am expected to listen, recall information, and write notes are still difficult for me today.
Nausea and Vomiting:
The final reason I would like to write the two exams later is due to nausea and vomiting. Immediately following the concussion I could not walk without nausea. I vomiting during many car rides. I stopped work and cancelled everything for months. My family doctor had me cancel flights to Calgary scheduled for June, and ordered a CAT scan. The drive to the CAT scan appointment made me so nauseous that I lay down in a chair and would not leave so my mother walked me to the emergency department of Trillium Hospital in Toronto. They prescribed heavy vertigo and anti-nausea drugs so that I could get home. The neurologist prescribed anti-nausea and anti-dizziness medications on June 2nd. He said that usually a few weeks of the pills can end the nausea and dizziness. By the end of July, I stopped taking the anti-nausea drugs and managed to ride in a car without vomiting.
That lasted until mid-August. After studying physics for two hours I threw up in the car again and so I emailed Professors Hanes and MacLean on that day asking if they would support my appeal to write the exam later in Fall of 2014, which they both have agreed to.
Current Status:
Over the summer I tried studying for my exams three times. I tried studying for the first time at the end of July. After about twenty minutes I stood up, and the entire room spun and swayed. Any kind of sudden motion combined with thinking activities made me ill. I held the computer desk and the screen moved back and forth. Physics questions I could do easily last term take me three times longer. I could not remember the lines of math, and had to re-write them several times, making the same mistakes repeatedly. I could not read simple instructions but when I tried to think about anything more complex than instructions I would get dizzy again and feel pain in the spot where I hit my head, and then I would need to take pills again, go to sleep, or stop all activity and close my eyes. I stopped trying to review for the exams. The symptoms continued long after I was told they would stop.
Although the concussion was four months ago, I still develop headaches in the location where I hit my head on the metal radiator whenever I do intensive thinking, typically memorization or difficult physics problems. I will not be able to write an exam for three hours without suffering greatly. Exams are very long amounts of sustained thinking. I believe I will not be able to write them. Currently, I find it difficult to get through three hours of lectures without dizziness, never mind a three hour exam.
I have not recovered from the concussion. I have resumed a daily dose of the anti-nausea and anti-dizziness drugs. Combined with ADHD medications for focusing, which I was already taking, and also Tylenol, I can get through the day. However pills do not help with the blankness when I try to think. Due to the symptoms listed above I would like to write the two physics exams later in the Fall term.
Regards,
Lianne Chu
10030758
September 14, 2014.
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing this appeal in regards to my incomplete grades in Physics P16 and Physics 212 due to extenuating circumstances. I have been suffering from the after affects caused by my concussion, which has rendered me unable to complete coursework, as my symptoms surrounding the trauma have become psychomatic, which has made even recounting events for the following timeline a harrowing experience.
On the night of April 20th I was sitting in my room studying for my last two exams when I leaned backwards and fell, hitting my head on the metal radiator in my room. I had a big bump and symptoms of a concussion. Everything I can remember from the incident is recorded below. I remember being so dizzy that I could not sit up, lay down, or walk without holding my head. When I went to brush my teeth, I had to hold my head still because the motion made me feel like vomiting.
I remember realizing that I might have a concussion, but I was so fatigued due to my injury that I was not thinking clearly. At this point, my exams were my most pressing concern, and I did not think I needed medical attention. I was not in a position to make such a judgement call, but regardless, I went to bed after attempting to continue studying. I went to KGH the next morning because I was extremely disoriented. I had never been so perpetually dizzy and nauseous. Any movement caused severe dizziness and nausea. In addition, I was so unsettled by my injury that the only thing I could remember was that I had hit my head, which, aside form my name, was the only source of information I was able to provide the doctors and nurses.
I could not remember my cell phone number or my family doctor¿¿s name. I gave them the wrong cell phone number, but did not realize what happened until a week later, when my memories of the incident began to return. However, as I had been diligently studying for my exams, I did remember that I was set to take them. I sent emails to my professors explaining what happened. However, the act of writing the e-mail exacerbated my debilitating head pain, and was too strenuous to have attempted so soon after my injury. As a result, I had a vomiting episode in the waiting room of the hospital.
As most of my memories of the incident have returned, months later, I can now recall the extent of my disorientation. I was very confused as to how I got home, and found myself unable to remember moving from room to room. I was unaware that I was relaying the same information over and over. Additionally, I was unnerved and convinced I had misplaced things for days afterwards, because I could not remember moving them only hours earlier. Family members and my housemates have reported that I acted irregularly in this time. I was very irritable and unpredictable, and I could not clearly convey ideas to my other, very concerned housemates because my grasp of temporal events was extremely unreliable. For example, in the days after my concussion, my housemates kept encouraging me to go to the hospital, and I rebuffed their concerns. However, I did so because I could not articulate that I had already been to the hospital.
Effects of concussion:
I was unable to study during May, June, July and August due to continuous problems with concussion symptoms namely sleep, headaches, nausea, dizziness, and memory problems.
Sleep:
Immediately after suffering the concussion on April 20th, I slept twenty hours per day for an entire week. Then I could not sleep at all and it took until the end of June before I was sleeping normally. This is typical for concussions. Sleep is essentially to recall information needed for the two exams and thus I could not write the exams during the first month of the summer term.
Screens:
I was referred to a neurologist who prescribed me sleeping pills on June 2nd, however I still could not write the exams during June due to dizziness from screens. This sensitivity to screens improved, but even the last week of August when I wrote the first draft of this appeal letter I became dizzy after using a screen for a prolonged amount of time. With this dizziness from screens, I could not study for the exams over the Summer Term.
Memory:
I continue to have trouble with memory after a sustained mental exercise. In May, when my parents were emailing the arts and science department to arrange the incomplete grades for me, I could not remember the names of the professors who taught me Physics P16 and Physics 212. Lectures where I am expected to listen, recall information, and write notes are still difficult for me today.
Nausea and Vomiting:
The final reason I would like to write the two exams later is due to nausea and vomiting. Immediately following the concussion I could not walk without nausea. I vomiting during many car rides. I stopped work and cancelled everything for months. My family doctor had me cancel flights to Calgary scheduled for June, and ordered a CAT scan. The drive to the CAT scan appointment made me so nauseous that I lay down in a chair and would not leave so my mother walked me to the emergency department of Trillium Hospital in Toronto. They prescribed heavy vertigo and anti-nausea drugs so that I could get home. The neurologist prescribed anti-nausea and anti-dizziness medications on June 2nd. He said that usually a few weeks of the pills can end the nausea and dizziness. By the end of July, I stopped taking the anti-nausea drugs and managed to ride in a car without vomiting.
That lasted until mid-August. After studying physics for two hours I threw up in the car again and so I emailed Professors Hanes and MacLean on that day asking if they would support my appeal to write the exam later in Fall of 2014, which they both have agreed to.
Current Status:
Over the summer I tried studying for my exams three times. I tried studying for the first time at the end of July. After about twenty minutes I stood up, and the entire room spun and swayed. Any kind of sudden motion combined with thinking activities made me ill. I held the computer desk and the screen moved back and forth. Physics questions I could do easily last term take me three times longer. I could not remember the lines of math, and had to re-write them several times, making the same mistakes repeatedly. I could not read simple instructions but when I tried to think about anything more complex than instructions I would get dizzy again and feel pain in the spot where I hit my head, and then I would need to take pills again, go to sleep, or stop all activity and close my eyes. I stopped trying to review for the exams. The symptoms continued long after I was told they would stop.
Although the concussion was four months ago, I still develop headaches in the location where I hit my head on the metal radiator whenever I do intensive thinking, typically memorization or difficult physics problems. I will not be able to write an exam for three hours without suffering greatly. Exams are very long amounts of sustained thinking. I believe I will not be able to write them. Currently, I find it difficult to get through three hours of lectures without dizziness, never mind a three hour exam.
I have not recovered from the concussion. I have resumed a daily dose of the anti-nausea and anti-dizziness drugs. Combined with ADHD medications for focusing, which I was already taking, and also Tylenol, I can get through the day. However pills do not help with the blankness when I try to think. Due to the symptoms listed above I would like to write the two physics exams later in the Fall term.
Regards,
Lianne Chu
10030758