A year ago last July I promised to give kossacks a yearly update on my life, since I had pretty much disappeared, only commenting and writing a diary on occasion. I had returned to school! Not only was I busy but there was a lot to tell.
Okay, so if anyone is going to keep me to the exactly annual thing, this update is late. But keep reading and you’ll understand why (though I do see that I managed to average posting a dairy at least once a month this past year – yay me!)
Brief recap:
I was very sick for 20 years. The “cure” for my illness was found once my mother remembered that she had taken DES while pregnant with me. I found a specialist, GYN who deals with women like me. I had a car accident which left me unable to walk much and unable to heal, though no one really understood why. My illness attributed to the DES exposure worsened and on the way of treating that my GYN and his team found the issue that was keeping me from healing – I didn’t just need one iron supplement a day, I needed (and need) two. Taadah!
All healed and able to walk I deep cleaned my house from top to bottom, became more active and went back to school to finish my AA degree and then to go on to finish a BA (something that I had started way back in 1981).
When I wrote the last diary I was taking my last two classes for my AA. I had already gotten to walk at the May 2014 graduation because I was so close to finishing. That was important because I wanted my mother to know that I had completed at least one degree before she passed. She’s still here, though not doing well and a copy of my degree is hanging in my parents dining room.
Also to update that diary a year ago, this dyslexic didn’t just graduate Cum Laude. With two A’s from those summer classes I graduated MAGNA Cum Laude. Yes I feels very good – especially when you consider in kindergarten the teacher had made me sit in the corner with a dunce cap on my head (my parents found out and got her fired) and the teachers and principal in the elementary school in attended first wrote me off. The principal even telling my mother her daughter didn’t have it for school.
Okay so I guess that recap wasn’t so brief and I hope you’ll forgive the little bit of preening I did there.
New stuff:
In the summer of 2014 I was talking a history class and an astronomy class the last two classes I had to do to finish my history and science requirements. In the last few weeks of class (6 weeks after I wrote the update diary) my professor took me aside and said that while he knew I was on a trajectory to get a bachelors degree in History he really wanted me to look into and consider getting a degree in science. I had, as he said, an aptitude for it.
It was then I told him my “sad” story. In 1981 I was a Chemistry major, in the pre-med program at the University of Colorado at Denver. Everything about my class and labs were great until it came to the math. Try as I might I could never get through Algebra 2. I had over the years attempted the class 6 times. Each time getting a little further in the class and understanding the subject, but always hitting a brick wall that would cause me to have to withdraw.
He listened, asked me a few questions and then said it sounded like I have a math learning disability.
What?! There is a specific math learning disability?!
Yes. It's called dsycalculia. He wanted me to speak to student disability services and the chair of the math department. He also got after me for not going before because of my dyslexia and the keratoconis in my right eye. It was the same thing the student disability office wanted to know, why hadn’t I availed myself of their services. Simple answer was since I had only been taking 2 classes a semester I hadn’t needed extra time or assistance. I had been fine.
I told my prof I would look into it. And I did.
The day after my last class I contacted both the math chair and the office of disability services. In the mean time I was waiting for UMASS Boston to decide what they were going to readmit me as. I had been a student there in the 90s (when my health really took a turn for the worst and my grades showed it). Was I a readmit student or was a transfer student? When they finally decided I was a readmit student (with conditions because of the grades in the 90s) I had missed all dead lines. This meant that instead of matriculating directly into UMB for Fall 2014, I would restart Spring 2015. I had a gap semester – and that break actually helped decide what I am doing now.
I thought long and hard during the next few days. I absolutely did not want to give up my degree in History, something I knew I could do, for something I wasn’t sure of at all. I am very risk adversed. Getting a bachelors after so many years is of absolute importance to me.
But I started out in science. Wouldn’t it be cool, wonderful, great, to FINALLY get a degree in science?
Yes, it would.
Could I do both, just delay, by a year getting a BA in History, working on getting all my math work done, and basic physics and then transfer over to another school after the BA to get a BS degree in Astrophysics? Could I do it? Did I want to try? It would certainly make this 50+ year old woman more employable, even if just a few years as a researcher.
I decided to use the Fall 2014 gap semester as a litmus to make the decision. I registered for another astronomy class and Algebra 2 at my community college. If I passed Algebra 2 this time, then I would commit to going to both the university and college (math and physics community college classes are cheaper) simultaneously, and work on both degrees simultaneously. I would then finish my History degree a little later and then two years later finish a degree in Astrophysics. If I bombed at math (or physics) at any time it couldn’t affect my gpa at the university.
During that past year, something else happened, I don’t think I reported in my last update. My right eye had changed dramatically in during 2014. A trip to the eye doctor said that the cornea had gotten thinner, and the change from the previous year was so great it warranted concern. For every day life it was now really hindering reading and I was/am getting migraines every month that while not painful, prevent me from focusing enough to read. My time of not gracing the door of any school disability office was coming to an end. I was scheduled to see a cornea specialist early in 2015.
Because I am 52 I did not have all the standard tests for learning disabilities kids and young adults are given these days. While they can be administered to me, and would help in obtaining disability services for school, my insurance company will not pay for it.
However since I get most of the same services because of my eye sight that I would get for dyslexia, I do indeed get what I need.
Now because of registering with the disability office(s) I get recorded textbooks (the words are mechanical and you could fall asleep listening to it, so you have to be attentive), a big electronic magnifier to help me read the books myself (I can read them on my own so much faster with this), lighted hand held magnifiers for in class, smart pens, a tablet option if I want it, extra time for exams, and being able to record my class)
Then using
Rate My Professors I chose between the two the math department chair recommended. Taking a deep breath I dived in. Early on I spoke to my math prof, telling him the issues, that I have never completed Algebra 2, and what my plans were/are. I told him I would probably be at his office for help often, and I was.
I soon discovered that he could explain a problem so that I understood it better than anyone else that I asked for help. And thanks to the day and age we live in, he was available through email every day, many times a day – there were some days he’d spend some of the email calming me down because it was obvious I was freaking out because I couldn’t/didn’t understand something.
When over Thanksgiving he wasn’t available, my sons were. Everyone was home and wanted to play board games. I told them I couldn’t until I learned and understood functions. So they proceeded to teach me functions and to write it in such a way as I won’t get confused.
I know everyone slams Pearson, and a lot of people don’t like “My Math Lab” an on-line assistant for their math books. I think if my prof used it the way some professors used it, I’d hate it too, depending on it solely – but my prof doesn’t.
He assigns problems from the book as homework, which we have to turn in the next class. We can used my math lab to generate more problems than the book can for areas which we really need to work on stuff we are weak on. Then a week or so before a monthly exam we are giving a “quiz” through my math lab to help us find out our weak spots. Then we are given a pre-test through my math lab, which counts but we have to bring in our work to not only show we did it ourselves, but also to get partial credit for problems, depending on where and how badly we fell off the rails in a wrong one. And then an in class 2 -4 page exam for which we have to show all our work.
And . . . I passed . . . with a B!
I emailed my prof a thank you note and he sent back a rather long letter about believing in myself and having confidence in me.
He is one of my favorite professors. I registered for Trigonometry with him for Spring 2015. It was the only math class I was going to take that semester when we were all told that they were reorganizing the math classes and to make sure we didn’t miss anything in the shuffle we needed to take both Trig and Pre-Calc Spring 2015.
Great, just great. Because under the terms of my re-admit to UMB I had to take 2 classes. I hadn’t planned and didn’t want to be essentially a full time student during my youngest son’s last semester in high school. But I tried.
Then we in New England had the winter from hell.
I literally did not have Pre-calc for a month because the school was always closed on Mondays due to snow. Both my schools are about an hour away from me in opposite directions and I couldn’t get to either of them because of the snow to use the electronic magnifiers. And the older one at the closer community college satellite campus was only available until 5pm, if I could get out at all (we are now talking about getting one for the home, but they are expensive and I already tried a big lighted magnifier, it doesn’t work for what I need.)
As our winter from hell began to abate, and I was trying desperately to catch up on reading, and missed classes. One I missed, not because the campus closed but because while I had been dug out at 11:30am, I was plowed in again at 1:00pm when I had to leave for class.
I started to feel a tightness in my chest.
I knew I was burning the candle at both ends, with life responsibilities and trying to catch up, I told myself it was just a cold and I would be better soon. 2 weeks later I wound up being admitted into the hospital for bronchitis and pneumonia. I have asthma, this is not good. I was there for a week, and they probably should have made me stay longer.
I was discharged with a steroid inhaler and told to make a follow up appointment with my pulmonary and my primary. Which I did. I tried to go back to my math classes, which were both in the same room, but there was so much chalk dust (because despite pleas from the professors, it hadn’t been cleaned well) that I was having now constant asthma attacks (before hospitalization they had become very rare). One so bad that I was taken to the ER from the college campus.
I also stopped using the inhaler after 2 days because every time I used it I was hit with a terrible headache that incapacitated me. If I had a tingle and a possible asthma attack I wouldn’t go to class.
After another try with a different inhaled steroid my primary mercifully and by my request put me on oral prednisone. He couldn’t understand why no one had done this before. And it’s not that I like it, I hate it, but I knew it was the only way to end the weeks of coughing and hopefully the asthma attacks after being release. It worked, but I had still lost an additional 2 weeks after being released from the hospital.
Pre-calc was done for me and I had to take a medical withdrawal. In an effort to salvage two classes I took a medical withdrawal for one of my history classes too. I ended up getting an A in “American History from 1945 to the Present.”.* However I could not catch up enough in Trig and took an incomplete.
My asthma, and sensitivity to chalk dust, is now part of my student disability profile and it means that any chalk board classroom I am in must be cleaned, erasers clapped, etc. Why don't they just put these classes in a white board classroom, which would save all the trouble? Ignoring the reason that I hate white boards, and if they aren't cleaned well they are just as bad, sans dust, I can't have them because of my eye sight.
When the change in my cornea was detected I was sent to a cornea specialist. They tried a ridged hard contact on me to not only give me some sight back in my eye to be help protect the cornea. It will continue getting thinner and with that there is a risk of perforation. But the correction the contact gave me was so little and the pain it gave me so great they didn't think I'd wear it much (they were right) that it wouldn't justify the cost. Eventually I will need a transplant.
Just a week or so after my semester was over, my middle son walked in his graduation from Northeastern University. Two weeks after that my youngest son walked in his graduation from high school.
I decided to re-take a 6 week intensive pre-calc class which began before my son's high school graduation ceremony. So I was sort of pre-occupied for 2 weeks, but then devoted many days and evenings to the campus computer lab. Because our books for this class was from Cengage, we didn’t have My Math Lab, or anything like it to access from home.
The best I could do was take and retake the practice quizzes on the science computers. My prof for Algebra 2 and Trig also taught this past summer, and once a week he would tutor me and was again available via email. The Monday before my Thursday final he spent 2 hours tutoring me. . . even objected when I brought him lunch to say “thank you.”
I got a “C” for Pre-Calc, which I am more than happy with.
And even though I can now go on to Calculus, a class that in a million years I never thought I would be able to take, I figure more math for me is better. So I am taking the new Trig class, from my favorite math teacher. I’ll take Calculus Spring 2016.
Two weeks after my Pre-calc class ended my daughter and my 2 year old granddaughter, Amelia came out for a visit. The second to the last day of their two week visit (I’m noticing a pattern) culminated in a trip to Edaville, in Carver, MA for the new Thomas (the Tank Engine) Land. Amelia loves Thomas the Tank Engine.
Two weeks after they left, (well not quite two weeks – 11 days – but why mess with the flow?) we moved my youngest son into his dorm for his first year of college.
After my husband left with our middle son to take him back to his apartment. I took my youngest out for ice cream, then dropped him off at his dorm. I left and found a quiet space in a parking lot to cry. 31 years of being a full time mom ended when he stepped out of my car. Now it is for him, as with his 3 older sibs, when they request it, when I am needed. (I hope you get what I am trying to say )
That was yesterday.
Tuesday I will be taking an asthma stress test, which is such a “fun” way to spend my 53rd birthday. But it was the only date available because school, both schools, start again for me September, 8th.
Though I could probably do 4 classes now, I’m only taking 3 this semester. Two for my history degree and Trig.
And then there is some other stuff going on, but talking about that is for a later date.
But that’s it.
I have joked that getting a BS in Astrophysics is very much like getting a BA in (human) History. It’s all still history, I’m just skipping getting a degree in “middle history” (geologic).
Yeah if you want to be technical there is human pre-history . . . but let’s not nit pick
:-)
This past 12 months I have battled issues with self confidence that I didn't know where there and that 20+ years of illness gave me. Passing Algebra 2 was monumental for me - politicians want to dismantle the community college system, but without it I wouldn't be on the path I am today ... two degrees
I also had to battle lack of confidence and my own feeling of belonging and intimidation at UMASS. It was not from any professor or student. In fact when I objected to the lack of depth I felt was in the reporting of what happened here at home during the Iran hostage crisis to my prof in email, (even sending him a link to the diary I had written here at Dkos), I was asked (and was totally unprepared for) to talk about it in class.
No, the intimation and lack of confidence came from inside me. Some how I didn't think I belong there, my years of illness and the grades it produced cemented a false narrative in my mind. Making the strategic decisions I made and then getting an A the one history class that survived has been nothing short of slaying dragons.