Petition Letter
To Associate Dean Jean Stephenson
I am writing to appeal the Faculty??s decision that I must withdraw from Queen??s for a minimum of one year. I believe there is a compelling extenuating circumstance that proves why I was unable to raise my GPA to the required minimum to continue my studies.
I have two medical conditions that were and are ongoing. I am a Type 1 Diabetic and I have been dealing with ongoing shoulder and nerve issues for the better part of five years. I have been seeing a physiotherapist weekly for the past 5 years to get treatment for the shoulder issue to stop it from getting worse.
In January of 2022 it began to rapidly go downhill faster than my physiotherapy treatments could help with. In June of 2021 I had met with a surgeon to look at the possibility of surgery to help with the issue because other treatments I had tried were not helping. In February of 2022 I got an MRI I had been waiting on since June of 202, after this MRI I had a follow up with the surgeon that the way to go forward was with surgery. I got a call in mid May of 2022 that my surgery would be May 31 2022. I was then in the hospital until June 4 due to some complications.
Before the surgery my condition was quite bad. There were many days that I had to miss work and school activities because I could barely move because of the pain. I had to seek medication from my doctor because over the counter pills did not help anymore. My condition also made it hard for me to focus or sit for long periods of time. Doing school work was hard as I could not sit for long periods of time without pain. It also caused me to lose a lot of sleep as rolling over onto the painful side would wake me up and send me into a pain episode.
I was taking 4 classes in the Winter term of 2022. I passed two of these classes. I tried to work on all of them but towards the end I focused on trying to do the assignments that were a bit easier for me. I thought I was going to be able to raise my GPA enough but was not fully successful. I did end up raising my GPA but not to the full requirement. I did not want to drop the classes before the dates because I thought at the time I could pass them.
I made the choice to take summer classes to raise my GPA to the needed requirement. I took a lighter class load due to the possibility of having surgery during the summer. When I got my date I reached out to my teachers to inform them and get extensions. Going forward I will be taking light class loads as I continue my recovery with multiple weekly sessions of physiotherapy. I have also taken a leave of absence from work until July 20 so I can focus on both school and recovering.
Should I be successful in this appeal I will also reach out to my accommodations worker to see if there is anything that can be added or needs to change depending on how my recovery is going. I will also be using extensions when needed with my teachers as I know the resources are there to help me. My doctor said that going forward I should no longer have major pain episodes that I did before and I am finding sitting in a chair for more than 30 minutes possible whereas it was hard before the surgery.
Thank you for taking the time to look over my appeal.
Amy Owen
I am writing to appeal the Faculty??s decision that I must withdraw from Queen??s for a minimum of one year. I believe there is a compelling extenuating circumstance that proves why I was unable to raise my GPA to the required minimum to continue my studies.
I have two medical conditions that were and are ongoing. I am a Type 1 Diabetic and I have been dealing with ongoing shoulder and nerve issues for the better part of five years. I have been seeing a physiotherapist weekly for the past 5 years to get treatment for the shoulder issue to stop it from getting worse.
In January of 2022 it began to rapidly go downhill faster than my physiotherapy treatments could help with. In June of 2021 I had met with a surgeon to look at the possibility of surgery to help with the issue because other treatments I had tried were not helping. In February of 2022 I got an MRI I had been waiting on since June of 202, after this MRI I had a follow up with the surgeon that the way to go forward was with surgery. I got a call in mid May of 2022 that my surgery would be May 31 2022. I was then in the hospital until June 4 due to some complications.
Before the surgery my condition was quite bad. There were many days that I had to miss work and school activities because I could barely move because of the pain. I had to seek medication from my doctor because over the counter pills did not help anymore. My condition also made it hard for me to focus or sit for long periods of time. Doing school work was hard as I could not sit for long periods of time without pain. It also caused me to lose a lot of sleep as rolling over onto the painful side would wake me up and send me into a pain episode.
I was taking 4 classes in the Winter term of 2022. I passed two of these classes. I tried to work on all of them but towards the end I focused on trying to do the assignments that were a bit easier for me. I thought I was going to be able to raise my GPA enough but was not fully successful. I did end up raising my GPA but not to the full requirement. I did not want to drop the classes before the dates because I thought at the time I could pass them.
I made the choice to take summer classes to raise my GPA to the needed requirement. I took a lighter class load due to the possibility of having surgery during the summer. When I got my date I reached out to my teachers to inform them and get extensions. Going forward I will be taking light class loads as I continue my recovery with multiple weekly sessions of physiotherapy. I have also taken a leave of absence from work until July 20 so I can focus on both school and recovering.
Should I be successful in this appeal I will also reach out to my accommodations worker to see if there is anything that can be added or needs to change depending on how my recovery is going. I will also be using extensions when needed with my teachers as I know the resources are there to help me. My doctor said that going forward I should no longer have major pain episodes that I did before and I am finding sitting in a chair for more than 30 minutes possible whereas it was hard before the surgery.
Thank you for taking the time to look over my appeal.
Amy Owen