<p>My daughter is due to move onto her college campus this coming Friday, the 26th. Unfortunately, 3 weeks ago she lifted something heavy at her job and as a reuslt has two herniated discs. She is under the care of an orthopedic surgeon and has started receiving physical therapy already. This makes walking or even sitting in one place too long unbearably painful, and even doing simple tasks like picking up a dropped object or putting on her pants nearly impossible. These task issues on a large campus will be difficult so it seems. There are shuttles and even a van from disability services she could use for transportation, but sitting in a classroom or in an auditorium chair for a lecture will be tough. And god knows she can not ask a new roommate to help her get dresses as she does me. These all seem to add up to taking a medical leave for this semester, and starting in Jan. assuming she is well. I called the school and the leave is not a problem but they will not guarantee housing for second semester as they already are crunched. She and her roomie to be hand picked each other on Facebook, and seem like a perfect match, and they are placed in a nice dorm, with an elevator. The problems are housing for second semester and telling roomie she is not coming which would mean that she will get stuck with whoever they need to place. Also, my daughter can not get passed the idea that being home will make her a "bum" in her words, although we assure her this is not the case. Tomorrow we will take a ride to the school and meet with student services, and ask how they have handled this in the past, etc...I have to believe , that for various reasons, medical or otherwise, my child is not the first student to have to delay starting. This is a a state university, so there are thousands of kids, mine can't be the first. Any thoughts from anyone who has gone through a similar situation or has known someone else who has. Thanks.</p>
<p>What does your daughter want to do?</p>
<p>Momofthreeboys: I think being realistic she thinks it will be too much for her, but emotionally she was so ready to move on and begin college, it is depressing her. Her biggest concern is being able to sit through classes and being able to focus. If she sits there in horrible pain and is not able to learn and then not able to study, her grades will certainly suffer. She graduated with a 4.0 from high school, and is a serious student. If this effects her grades it will upset her. Also, orthodedic sugeon has said that with the steroids he has her on, she may feel good for a few weeks and then be back to square zero if she overdoes it.</p>
<p>That’s an unfortunate situation. I do have a few thoughts (I have a daughter that we dropped off at college yesterday who has many medical issues.)</p>
<p>Of course I don’t know all the details on the entire situation but my initial thoughts would be
- Perhaps roommate would be much happier helping her get dressed for a while than having the unknown roommate situation. Even though your daughter may not want to impose this on a new roommate it may not be so bad from the roommate’s perspective.</p>
<p>2) I fully understand how she would be worried about handling long classes, etc. If the school can help by allowing her to do a combination of sitting / standing / quick walk, etc. she MAY be able to get through classes until it gets better.</p>
<p>3) Find out what the financial & other negative impact would be if she tried to make it work and just couldn’t swing it. </p>
<p>4) Having had herniated discs myself, as the Dr. said, it is entirely possible she will be much better in a short time. Mine was excrutiating for a couple of weeks then got better slowly but was at least better enough to be able to work in a fairly short time. I was actually surprised in my case how it turned out. It does indeed flare up if I do something I shouldn’t do though so she does need to be careful with that. Of course everyone is different so she could unfortunately take much longer to heal.</p>
<p>5) I found the disability office at my daughter’s NY State school to be much more helpful that I had initially anticipated. With one of our requests one woman in their office said “I’ve been her 11 years and I don’t ever remember making that accommodation for any student” the Director said it would be no problem at all to grant our request. (And It wasn’t even that big of a request). So they may really able to help her figure out how to make it work. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>If she does end up staying home for the semester you could have her look into what online community college credits would transfer to her school once she returns, that way, she could take them at her own pace at home (taking breaks when necessary) and return to school with a few credits under her belt so she is still on track to graduate in 4 years.</p>
<p>My daughter has decided that deferring until Jan. is the best way for her to go. She talked to lots of people , and all encouraged this. I am glad because I just don’t see any improvement in her so far, and the orthopedist increased her muscle relaxer and it makes her so tired. Luckily she has AP credits and university experience credits so she won’t be too far behind. She has already lined up a job tutoring a middle school student. It will be good experience and bring her in a few $$.</p>
<p>I’m sorry that your daughter had to defer, but it sounds like the right decision. This must be very disapointing for her. I hope that she feels better soon.</p>