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Why I Had to Leave College in My Freshman Year

College Life

By Laura LowmanPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Wingate '21 Class photo

It is the second semester of my freshmen year of college. We have gotten snow a couple times and everyone has the flu. And I mean everyone. Including me. It's the fifth week of classes and I can honestly say I've only been to probably ten of my classes this semester. The university has posters put up all around campus saying that if you feel sick in any way to go back to your dorm.

Now, I struggled with my health all through high school. At one point in my junior year, my doctor pulled me out of school for two months and I was unable to go back until the end of the semester due to my health. And even after I was released to go back to school, my doctors could still not find an answer as to what was wrong with me. I spent the next year and a half struggling but continued to push myself to keep my grades up and get accepted into a college of my choice. In January of 2017, I was accepted to Wingate University and prepared to get all of my paperwork done so that I could move into a dorm in the fall. Wingate is almost two hours away from where I'm from and over the summer my health issues had improved and I was hopeful that I'd be able to succeed in college.

I had some issues with stress during my first semester and also had surgery during my winter break because I had been continuously in excruciating pain with no answers. My surgery revealed that I have stage 1 endometriosis which can be maintained with continuing medication. We went ahead with the surgery in hope that it would show what was causing all of my continued symptoms, but it only showed us a little bit of it.

Come the second semester, the school had to cancel classes due to the snow. I'm from the south, so we don't do too well with going about our daily lives like northerners can. So an entire week of classes was canceled and right after that, I got sick. I went to the health clinic twice and they didn't test me for anything. Instead, they prescribed me medication after medication to treat symptoms such as migraines and a UTI which I didn't have. My symptoms went on for almost two and a half weeks without being properly treated and I was so far behind in my classes that two of my professors told me to withdraw from their class because if I went back to their class, I would still finish the semester with an "F." One night I drove myself to the hospital and was left untreated there as well. So that being said, I went back to my dorm, packed my things, and drove two hours home at 3 AM. To say I was highly upset is an understatement.

My mom spent the next two days contacting my school and other parents asking for their advice and what could be done so that I would not have to withdraw from the school for the semester. I saw my primary physician towards the end of the week that I came home and my doctor said that I was on possibly my second round of the flu and a terrible sinus infection to top everything off, and my asthma that hadn't been a problem for several years flared up due to the untreated inflammation in my lungs and sinuses.

My doctor advised that I withdraw from my university because she understood from experience what it is like to miss classes and not be able to get caught up in order to pass the class. So my mother and I called my school and decided that the best opportunity for me to get better and also keep my education from tanking was to take a temporary leave o absence.

I'm currently looking to get enrolled in online classes and transfer to a university closer to home for the fall semester so that I may be closer to home in the event this situation comes up again.

My advice is to pay attention to what your body is telling you. Your health is far more important than your education and it may feel like you are letting people down if you have to withdraw or leave school for whatever reason, but if you handle it in the right way, you can pick school back up in the future with little to no hassle.

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