u/Little_Orlik

I know that this subreddit is more for the industry than the education, but I don't know what to do really.

Nuclear Engineering is the one thing I am passionate about. I've been dedicated to outreach and service within Nuclear, and I've felt so grateful to be in an incredible college program studying nuclear engineering. I got a research job almost immediately during my first semester at University, and I've just fallen in love with every part of it. It feels like after years of searching, I finally found the thing I wanted to do.

Then, I started to get sick. It started out small in the fall of my freshman year, but it escalated very quickly to the point that I was missing weeks at a time because I couldn't go 15 minutes without throwing up from the intense pain I was in. I went to a doctor, and they found something concerning. They performed a surgery at the beginning of this semester to remove it and placed in a surgical implant to help me recover.

I ended up fixing the issue of me getting sick, but I ended up being allergic to a component in the surgical implant. I knew about this allergy prior to the surgery, and it was marked on my file, but it was unfortunately overlooked. The allergic reaction, due to its nature, caused me to get migraines, nausea, light sensitivity, skin rashes, hearing impairment, anxiety, and experience a cognitive decline. These are extremely common symptoms of a reaction to this specific component. Back to the hospital I went, but at this point, it'd already been two and a half months of these issues.

I spoke to my counselors, who agreed with me that this semester was not recoverable, and that even if I got As on everything after, I'd still get straight Cs. They recommended a medical withdrawal because my performance was not accurately being reflected due to my illness. So, I filed for one and got another surgery to remove the implant. Within 48 hours, the symptoms had all cleared up, and I am currently doing great. I've seen 5 doctors in multiple different fields, and all have cleared me to return to school in the fall.

The issue is that my University has prohibited me from returning. Their reasoning is because anxiety was a symptom of the surgical implant, I am not allowed to return until I have an official diagnosis of anxiety from a psychiatrist, am on medication for anxiety for a full year, and continue all of the medications that I was on at the time of my withdrawal. I asked if the surgical implant counts as a medication, they said yes. I told them it was removed as it was the cause of my problems, and asked for the terms to be appended. They said these were the standard terms assigned to students who withdraw because of anxiety. I tried to tell them that I did not withdraw because of anxiety, but they said that I can either abide by the terms they assigned to the letter, or I can deal with an expulsion.

This is devastating. I have two years of research on a project under my belt, I was supposed to publish my first paper in September, but I'm not allowed to return to the school that I was doing research at. I've spoken to everyone I can, but no one can help me. And because Nuclear Engineering isn't exactly the most common major, I can't transfer most of my credits to other Universities. Even so, I'm being forced to take a one-year gap from my learning now, even though my doctors cleared me. I spoke to the grad student that I work with on research, and he said there is no way he can leave my project unassisted for a year, and he must hire someone else to take my spot.

No one told me that this was a possibility. My counselors were all in agreement that since I would be healthy by May, I could return in the fall, but that the issue was simply that the semester did not accurately reflect my abilities. The point of the withdrawal was to give me an opportunity to focus on my health over my education, but now that my health is not concerning, I'm not even allowed to return to my education. I cannot continue on a medication I am allergic to. I've spoken to a psychiatrist and she said she's not going to medicate me for a condition I clearly don't have. I cannot abide by the terms in this contract even if I want to, and I do want to. My research means everything to me. My education means everything to me. Neither of my parents attended college, so me attending and performing well has been their biggest source of pride. But I'm being barred from returning to my school even though my doctors have cleared me, and I just feel so hopeless. I feel like there's no way I can ever be a nuclear engineer now, because I can't transfer my credits, and I can't afford another four years of college at another university.

I don't know what to do. I just feel like it's kind of over for me. I'm fighting the University as hard as I can, but it's just feeling like there's nothing I can do. I doubt any other Nuclear Engineers have ever been in my situation, but I just need some help. I feel like I'm being punished for having a life-threatening medical episode and being given conditions so specific that it's impossible for me to return.

Okay, I know that Catholic doctrine discusses witchcraft, but if I were to ask most Catholics I know, I'd say that they definitely don't believe in that kind of stuff. And honestly, neither do I.

I'm 20, which to me is way too old to be believing in this, but in December, this girl was starting horrible rumors about me and my friends. I confronted her about it, and I will admit, I lost my temper a lot. She smugly said that she could say whatever she wanted about whoever she wanted under freedom of speech, but these rumors had genuinely affected one of my friend's employment (One of the rumors she started was about my friend having a sexual relationship with her boss, it got back to the boss and he was so uncomfortable with the accusation that he transferred her to a different department), so I was very upset and yelled at her to the point that she was crying. Un-Catholic of me, I know. She stated that she would curse me and my friends.

The rumors stopped, the people who were spreading these rumors were genuinely apologetic, and my friends and I all had a good laugh about her threat to curse us. That was until the next semester started. In February, I got diagnosed with Leukemia. Two of my other friends have been diagnosed with long-term illnesses that had never shown any symptoms before this. We've studied harder than ever and still gotten terrible grades. Like genuinely, we've spent 10 hours on homework and are doing horribly. Out of the 18 parents that my friends and I have collectively, three have died this semester. There have been two car crashes that we've been involved in. I was in a bus accident. Two of my friends live together in an apartment, and their apartment complex caught fire and they had to move halfway through the semester to a building with mold. Two of my friends have done inpatient stays because of all this. I had to withdraw because of the leukemia, and the University expelled me even though I filled out the medical documentation properly and had proper documentation from my doctor.

I know that all of this stuff might just be a bad coincidence, but we genuinely are not doing good. The number one thing is that if this is because of me yelling at that girl, I don't want my friends to suffer because of my bad actions. Even though the rumors were horrible, calling someone names was wrong. I know there's witches on Etsy who will un-curse people, but I know that kind of thing is against Catholic doctrine. I don't believe in this stuff usually, but when I think back to when all of our lives started to go downhill, it started in January. Can we all go get an exorcism or something? What do we even do here? Is the Catholic thing to do just wait for things to get better? Because we've tried, we've hit rock bottom, and we've discovered that there is something lower than rock bottom.