Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello,

My name is Matthew Bytalan and I am a second year student, majoring in Economics. I am asking for a CR credit for the Stats 263 course I took in the Fall of 2014. The reason I am appealing is because I had post-concussion symptoms for the majority of the semester. Around September 26, 2014 I began to feel post-concussion symptoms. I receive these symptoms from being over-tired, falling ill and consequently not letting my brain get enough rest. The symptoms forced me to go home to Montreal and my parents around the beginning of October. For the five or so days that I stayed in Kingston before I went to Montreal, I could not go to class, do homework or any activity that a normal functioning person would do. I stayed in my room for the majority of the five days. The symptoms I get are confusion, extreme anxiety, nervousness, inability to comprehend writing/reading/conversations, sensitivity of light and sound and others. It is as if the receptive wires in my brain cannot process any new material that I see or hear when I have these symptoms. Because of these symptoms, I become extremely anti-social and all I feel capable of doing is sleeping. When I was at home in Montreal, I remained in bed in the effort to rest my brain as much as possible. The original concussion happened in May 2011 during a high school rugby game. I was hit in the forehead by a knee as I was being tackled to the ground. Ever since that happened, I have seen many doctors to help me get rid of the symptoms that come and go when my brain is extremely fatigued. The general opinion among them have been that when I get symptoms, I have to rest until my brain begins to feel normal and then begin a ramp up process where I start with very little reading/writing/television and gradually increase with each passing day. So, when I went back to Montreal at the beginning of October, I did what the doctors told me. I rested and after a week passed, I began feeling more normal so I began the ramp up process. After a few days of ramping up, I decided I was okay to go back to Kingston which happened to be right after Thanksgiving. I went to class for a week but then my symptoms came back. Clearly, I rushed myself in the attempt to miss as little school as possible and it caused me to experience post-concussion symptoms, even more severe than the first episode. This was around October 21st. From this date until approximately November 20th, I did not go to school.

My symptoms caused me to miss around 50 days in total. I missed 18 days from Sept. 26-Oct 13, then I went to class from October 14-17, and then I missed around one month of school. Admittedly, the days of October 14-17, I was not symptom free. I was scared of missing more school because I had already missed a good amount so I rushed myself and that decision caused myself even greater harm. I ended up dropping one course, Econ 212, because I knew I would not be able to handle five courses. I took one midterm only, Stats 263 on Oct. 16 with very little time to prepare. I missed my other midterms because of my symptoms and I was exempt from them because I had documentation from my Advisor, Jeanette Parsons, at Disability Services.

Because of the amount of days of school I missed and the amount of material and online quizzes I missed, I am asking for a CR credit for Stats 263. I passed the course but did much worse than I intended to. As I write this, I still have minor symptoms like nervousness and anxiety, but I am well enough to go to school although I have to be very careful so I don¿¿t relapse. Looking back on the first term, it was extremely difficult for me to come back from my post-concussion issues and complete the four courses that I did. There are some things I wish I had done differently in regards to my course load, but I am happy to be healthy now and look forward to continuing my Queen¿¿s career.