Petition Letter
Hello, I am petitioning to be able to add the course, IDIS 199 past the deadline and have it replace my current course MUSC 348. To begin, I was diagnosed with pericarditis (fluid around the heart) in the summer of 2023, I have been recovering for a couple years now and have been quite stable up until recently. Over the winter break I was admitted to the cardiac ICU at Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto, having chest pains, heart palpitations, chest tightness, fatigue, shortness of breath, and many other signs and symptoms of my heart condition. I was then diagnosed with myo-pericarditis (fluid around and within the heart muscle) as well as my heart muscle function had decreased. I was admitted to Sunnybrook hospital from December 21, 2025 until January 13th, 2026, causing me to miss the first two weeks of the winter semester. By the time I was able to get back home and slightly on my feet again, I came back to Kingston to start class again on Monday, January 19th. Although, on Tuesday, January 20th, I woke up again with chest pains, so I went to the ER and was readmitted now to KGH that very morning. I was admitted to hospital at KGH from January 20th until the night of January 21st, now causing me to miss more of my classes during week 3. Until this point in time, I have been able to keep up with most of my courses through speaking with my professors and getting assignments/course work done remotely. One of my classes I am enrolled in is MUSC 348, which is an in person guitar course. Unfortunately with me being in hospital for so long, this is the one course I have not been able to keep up in, since all of the work is done through playing guitar in person and the assignments are video recordings of playing guitar learned during in-class time, which I have not been able to get done due to being in hospital for so long. My extenuating circumstance has forced me to get too far behind in this course, through speaking with the professor, Jeff Hanlon, he has informed me that I could get extensions on the weekly assignments, but I would have difficulty completing the in-person group ensemble assignments as well as if have difficulty attending classes moving forwards, then it could affect my success in the course. Now, even though I am out of hospital, I am still in active recovery and must spend most of my time resting my heart and my body which can make it difficult at times to attend some of the important in-person classes. When I got discharged from Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto, I anticipated that I would be back to school and ready to catch up in my guitar course, but once I was readmitted less than a week later to KGH, it caused me to miss the deadline for adding a new course, resulting in this petition. So, with all of this combined, I have decided it is better for my health as well as my academics if I would be able to drop out of MUSC 348 and replace it with the online course, IDIS 199, which has one open seat left in it. I have consulted with my academic advisor, who helped me come to this conclusion as the best academic option given my current situation, by replacing MUSC 348 (a fully in-person course) with IDIS 199 (a fully online course), it would greatly help me with my health recovery, as well as keep me caught up with a full 5 course load.