Medical leave?

[gradeobsessed]

Hi All,
I've had a pretty miserable semester. I've missed most of my classes for the last ten weeks, because I developed pneumonia, among other health issues and complexities, followed by back to back viral infections. I was in the ER six or seven times. I've been running a low grade fever for about three months, and I feel pretty miserable. Usually, however, I've been able to overcome my health issues and get decent grades, a but that doesn't seem to be happening this semester. I'm in a cognitive fog, and I'm completely exhausted.

My freshman year, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis, developed myasthenia gravis (secondary to influenza), and missed about fifteen weeks of school, earning a 3.54 average. I'm a glutton for punishment, and then took General Chemistry over the summer, even though I hadn't fully recovered, which dragged my GPA down to a 3.34 (a C+, then a B.)

Currently, in my sophomore year, I'm struggling to even get through a minimum load. Although I have Bs and an A in my classes, I feel like I'm skating by on luck, rather than learning anything, which is depressing the hell out of me. I really enjoy all my coursework, and it hurts me that I'm regurgitating, not engaging and learning. It doesn't help that I feel like crap as well, but not being able to engage fully is sending me into a bit of a depressive state. I don't even have the energy to get up anymore.

I'm not sure if I should finish out the semester, or just go on a medical leave now. With my projected grades, my gpa would drop to a 3.3 or 3.27, - but that's not the point. I could definitely recover from the grades (and write a decent essay about it,) but I really feel like I'm not learning - just fighting, and I wouldn't be ready for the second half of any of my courses anyway.

I'm a first generation college student, and my parents aren't very supportive of me taking time off. Also, the medical care I have at my university is much better than I would receive at home.

What should I do? I'm completely lost, and utterly trapped.

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[LizzyM]

You have a few different things to weigh at this point and none of them should be your GPA.

1. You need medical care and you need to weigh the benefit of getting good medical care by staying in school versus the quality of care in your hometown.
2. You need to determine the economic effect of taking a leave of absence. Find out the policy at your school. Will you get your tuition refunded or will that be lost. Will you need to pay, again, for the semester's coursework?
3. Given your mental state, you may not be learning what you need to know to do well in subsequent courses that build on the material being taught this semester. You may benefit from leaving the coursework and returning to it when you are well. Only you can judge whether you have learned anything this school year or if you should cut your losses and repeat the courses later.

 

[Goro]

Hi All,
I've had a pretty miserable semester. I've missed most of my classes for the last ten weeks, because I developed pneumonia, among other health issues and complexities, followed by back to back viral infections. I was in the ER six or seven times. I've been running a low grade fever for about three months, and I feel pretty miserable. Usually, however, I've been able to overcome my health issues and get decent grades, a but that doesn't seem to be happening this semester. I'm in a cognitive fog, and I'm completely exhausted.

My freshman year, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis, developed myasthenia gravis (secondary to influenza), and missed about fifteen weeks of school, earning a 3.54 average. I'm a glutton for punishment, and then took General Chemistry over the summer, even though I hadn't fully recovered, which dragged my GPA down to a 3.34 (a C+, then a B.)

Currently, in my sophomore year, I'm struggling to even get through a minimum load. Although I have Bs and an A in my classes, I feel like I'm skating by on luck, rather than learning anything, which is depressing the hell out of me. I really enjoy all my coursework, and it hurts me that I'm regurgitating, not engaging and learning. It doesn't help that I feel like crap as well, but not being able to engage fully is sending me into a bit of a depressive state. I don't even have the energy to get up anymore.

I'm not sure if I should finish out the semester, or just go on a medical leave now. With my projected grades, my gpa would drop to a 3.3 or 3.27, - but that's not the point. I could definitely recover from the grades (and write a decent essay about it,) but I really feel like I'm not learning - just fighting, and I wouldn't be ready for the second half of any of my courses anyway.

I'm a first generation college student, and my parents aren't very supportive of me taking time off. Also, the medical care I have at my university is much better than I would receive at home.

What should I do? I'm completely lost, and utterly trapped.

Take LOA and go and heal.

 

[gradeobsessed]

Alright - so here's my plan. After discussing with my academic advisor, this is what I'm thinking of doing:

Take an HLOA. At my university, we're allowed to take up to two classes per semester of health leave. I'm thinking of killing my quantitative reasoning major requirements, and then killing physics over the summer. Return back to class in the fall, and take my current classes with new accommodations set. I have CP on top of all the lovely things listed above (and a few rarer ones I haven't shared), and the only accommodation I have is extended time.

While on health leave, I also intend to do some research into nearby institutions to see which labs I can safely participate in. (My organic chemistry professor asked if I had a death wish when I asked if it would be safe for me to take the lab component.) I love my home university, and don't want to leave over something as simple as lab inaccessibility - and the department chairs seem on board with it. Only one of the labs at my university are ADA accommodated, which is the biology lab, and I kept having allergic reactions within it. We were synthesizing mutated proteins, and the selector we used was ampicillin. I thought that was a mainstream antibiotic I was not allergic to, and discovered the lovely effects of memory b-cells on allergens over time. Wasn't seriously allergic when I started, but by the middle of the semester, I could not safely step into the lab, and had to withdraw. (I was double gloving and wearing infectious garb, but it still wasn't enough.)

Would anyone have any suggestions as to where I could find an ADA labs around Oakland, California? I know that UC Berkley does not let non-degree seeking students take their labs - and I don't believe my university would take community college credit. (Students have had it rejected in the past.) Considering my antibiotic allergies, are there any biology labs that would not require constant exposure?

 

[JustaDO]

Alright - so here's my plan. After discussing with my academic advisor, this is what I'm thinking of doing:

Take an HLOA. At my university, we're allowed to take up to two classes per semester of health leave. I'm thinking of killing my quantitative reasoning major requirements, and then killing physics over the summer. Return back to class in the fall, and take my current classes with new accommodations set. I have CP on top of all the lovely things listed above (and a few rarer ones I haven't shared), and the only accommodation I have is extended time.

While on health leave, I also intend to do some research into nearby institutions to see which labs I can safely participate in. (My organic chemistry professor asked if I had a death wish when I asked if it would be safe for me to take the lab component.) I love my home university, and don't want to leave over something as simple as lab inaccessibility - and the department chairs seem on board with it. Only one of the labs at my university are ADA accommodated, which is the biology lab, and I kept having allergic reactions within it. We were synthesizing mutated proteins, and the selector we used was ampicillin. I thought that was a mainstream antibiotic I was not allergic to, and discovered the lovely effects of memory b-cells on allergens over time. Wasn't seriously allergic when I started, but by the middle of the semester, I could not safely step into the lab, and had to withdraw. (I was double gloving and wearing infectious garb, but it still wasn't enough.)

Would anyone have any suggestions as to where I could find an ADA labs around Oakland, California? I know that UC Berkley does not let non-degree seeking students take their labs - and I don't believe my university would take community college credit. (Students have had it rejected in the past.) Considering my antibiotic allergies, are there any biology labs that would not require constant exposure?

This sounds like the perfect way to continue the downward spiral.

 

[getdown]

Alright - so here's my plan. After discussing with my academic advisor, this is what I'm thinking of doing:

Take an HLOA. At my university, we're allowed to take up to two classes per semester of health leave. I'm thinking of killing my quantitative reasoning major requirements, and then killing physics over the summer. Return back to class in the fall, and take my current classes with new accommodations set. I have CP on top of all the lovely things listed above (and a few rarer ones I haven't shared), and the only accommodation I have is extended time.

While on health leave, I also intend to do some research into nearby institutions to see which labs I can safely participate in. (My organic chemistry professor asked if I had a death wish when I asked if it would be safe for me to take the lab component.) I love my home university, and don't want to leave over something as simple as lab inaccessibility - and the department chairs seem on board with it. Only one of the labs at my university are ADA accommodated, which is the biology lab, and I kept having allergic reactions within it. We were synthesizing mutated proteins, and the selector we used was ampicillin. I thought that was a mainstream antibiotic I was not allergic to, and discovered the lovely effects of memory b-cells on allergens over time. Wasn't seriously allergic when I started, but by the middle of the semester, I could not safely step into the lab, and had to withdraw. (I was double gloving and wearing infectious garb, but it still wasn't enough.)

Would anyone have any suggestions as to where I could find an ADA labs around Oakland, California? I know that UC Berkley does not let non-degree seeking students take their labs - and I don't believe my university would take community college credit. (Students have had it rejected in the past.) Considering my antibiotic allergies, are there any biology labs that would not require constant exposure?

Health leave is meant to GIVE YOUR BODY TIME TO HEAL not to add more work and stress it even more. Come on man, get your priorities straight.