Disclaimer: These posts are speaking from my personal experience and I am merely relaying what has been beneficial for me. I know everyone’s situation is different, and I truly respect that and want to say up front that I know my methods may not work for others. By no means am I looking to push my experience as the only way that works, nor am I trying to say that anyone is wrong or weak for not exploring the methods I propose, or for having a varying opinion or experience. I have tremendous respect for everyone fighting through POTS, and I am only looking to extend empathy, offer support, encourage resilience, all while attempting to be as positive as possible! I’m also just looking to share my story and connect with others!
POTS knocked me out of school for about half of the days in my junior year. I had to drop my first-period class because mornings were associated with throbbing pains all over my body and an inability to concentrate on any subject matter material at all. On the days when I did go into school, my time there was limited to a few hours at a time. The mornings weren’t the only tough times. Concentrating was a monumental task for all of my classes. Reading a textbook and finishing a test, which were activities I had always breezed through, gave me headaches and rendered me incapacitated due to the mental stress and overwhelm.
Being in and out of class didn’t help either. Instead of being viewed as my normal, friendly, academically competitive self, many people looked at me with confusion, indifference, or the occasional sense of disdain. I can’t blame them for not being able to see an invisible illness. It can be hard enough for you and me to conceptualize POTS, even as we live with it on a daily basis. Others, by way of human nature, tried to simplify my condition by placing me in a “sick” bucket or a “making something up to miss school” bucket. All of these things combined to make high school a battle socially, mentally, emotionally, physically, and psychologically for me. Every day was an all-around challenge.
I just painted a bleak picture of my time in high school with POTS. However, my experience improved over time, and my senior year was night and day compared to my junior year. I was extremely fortunate to have amazing people and resources to help me through high school, so I want to share what helped me to finish out my junior year and then build up to an even better senior year of high school. These strategies, along with strokes of luck and caring people, carried me through the college application process and have now helped me tremendously as a student at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, ranked the top public university in the country.
Before I give credit to myself or anyone else, I have to give credit to my mom. She worked tirelessly behind the scenes to set my siblings and me up for success at school, and, without her, none of my relationships with teachers or counselors – or any of my academic success for that matter – would be possible. That’s something to keep in mind during this post — I’m lucky enough to have an amazing mother who did all she could to work with doctors, school, and with me to help me reach my highest level academically.
I also want to give this post a bit more background by explaining the type of help I got from my high school. Through my mom’s efforts, I had the support of my guidance department and teachers that allowed me to do whatever it took to get me through my classes. I also had a learning support teacher and department to help me communicate with teachers – shoutout to Mrs. Kelly, you’re an angel – and I took most tests in the learning support room. Extra aids included extra time on all assignments, the ability to dismiss the completion of some assignments, such as more frivolous homework or in-class activities, without consequence, and the option to take tests over a multi-day period.
I was definitely an outsider in terms of how I was completing my assignments relative to the rest of my classmates, but my individualized education plan was designed purely to help me overcome my unique limitations and balance the playing field between the other students and me. It allowed me to work at my own pace and take tests quietly, with breaks in between. It also took some of the weight off of my shoulders in terms of communicating with teachers about assignments, which can be incredibly intimidating for someone struggling with chronic illness.
I’ll talk more about accommodations later on, but they were an essential part of my story and I was lucky enough to have the help I did. I know other people or other schools may not have the same luck with guidance. If any parents or kids who are trying to work with school are reading this and want to hear my mom’s view on how she got medical information and talked with our guidance department to get our accommodations, please reach out to let me know and I can arrange a guest post where my mom can lay out her approach with doctors and school for accommodations.
My last couple posts have been in list form, and I hope they aren’t coming across as similar to BuzzFeed-esque posts like “17 Ways to Slice an Avocado this Summer.” I believe laying out my content as separate points can help to differentiate between and highlight each major detail, and today’s post will be a “list” of 5 strategies that have helped me to get back in school, get through a day of school, and get back to my best self academically.
So, without further ado, here are 5 things that have helped me go from out of school to a full-time college student in two years. Keep in mind that my situation is unique and fortunate, so these strategies may not work for everyone. However, hopefully, you can pull one or two takeaways from this post that can help you in school, work, or life.
1. Build Up Over Time
At my worst, I was in school for 1-2 days a week, for only a couple hours at a time. At my best, a year later, I was in school 5 days a week for three full periods, or about six hours of time. This transition did not happen overnight. It was a gradual build-up, and I set small goals for time spent in school and then kept checking them off and building up upon them.
I remember my first goal clearly — my 3rd-period class was Advanced Placement English, and it was a class in the afternoon that was fairly fast-paced, leading to my desire to keep up with it the best I could. The class was in the second semester, and my first semester took the analogy of a valley. I started high, fell down to my lowest point, and then started to build myself back up. By the time winter break was over and second semester was starting, I was still struggling with my health. Nonetheless, I had built some positive momentum with school, so I wanted to transfer my momentum over to concrete goals for my second semester.
My only second-semester goal was to go to AP English every day. I started out with about 3-4 days a week of the class, and the other two classes I had at the time were less of a priority. A significant accomplishment on a daily basis for me was showing up in class. Once I was in class, I knew I was helping myself because I wouldn’t be missing out on lessons or assignments that I would’ve had to make up had I been absent. Even if I weren’t 100% focused, I knew being there would help me to remember and complete at least some things, and that was much better than nothing at all.
Integrating myself into a group setting was tremendously helpful as well. Our class had desks in groups that entire semester, and listening to my groupmates discuss the content we were learning or the problem we were working through greatly helped me enhance my understanding of the class material. The ability to speak up in a small setting also took some pressure off of me and allowed me to build my concentration and confidence by contributing my point of view, along with asking for help if I were confused on a section.
Whenever we had an in-class essay or small test, I went to a different room to complete the assignment. I usually didn’t finish in the time the other kids did, but I got better and better and faster and faster over time. At first, I would be plagued by headaches and brain fog after having to read or write for 20-30 minutes. That went to 35, then 40, then 45, and by the end of the year, I was able to complete full assignments in one sitting.
In my other classes, my top focus was again showing up and participating. I started out with 2-3 days a week, and then gradually progressed. Those classes didn’t have as intense a workload as English, so I was able to miss a bit more time without having to make up as much. I completed many assignments for those two classes late, in the learning support room with accommodations, but over time I built up my mental energy supply and started to keep up with my classmates. By the end of the year, I was able to take 3 AP tests, which helped me receive college credit that is incredibly beneficial for me at Michigan. I didn’t get passing scores in all of my AP tests, but I viewed sitting down for them, after all I had gone through, as a massive win given where I started.
My route to building up my time in school was: show up -> do what I could in class -> complete assignments on my own terms with accommodations -> complete what I could at the pace of other students. By the end of the school year, I was in school 4-5 days per week, and I attended all 3 of my classes on my best days. It was difficult all year, especially at the start. But school got just a bit easier day by day, and, by the time the year was over, I was doing so much better than when I started.
2. Get Accommodations
This part is tough. I mentioned it earlier — I had a unique situation and everything came together with my mom and I working with guidance, learning support, and teachers to ensure my academic success. I know every school is different; there were people in my class at Mayo Clinic that couldn’t get much done with their guidance departments at school and they were unable to secure much in the way of accommodations. Accommodations were and are a major part of my academic success, though, so I am going to run you through what my process with accommodations looked like in high school and how it looks today, in college. Hopefully, there are some overlying principles that can be applied to most schools and situations.
In high school, I applied for an individualized education plan with notes from Dr. Boris at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia about the severity of POTS and accommodations that would help best prepare me for succeeding in school. I’m not sure of the exact information of those health documents, but, again, if anyone wants an in-depth view, please let me know. My biggest challenges in school were the amount of work I could get done in a certain time as well as the mental and physical stress that sitting in class for 80 minutes straight would cause me.
I was able to use extended time to complete certain assignments over multiple days to combat the first challenge. There were no worries for me about pushing myself too hard with school or having to spend any more than an hour at a time on an assignment. I knew those were triggers for symptoms and crashes, so I instead split up my work into smaller chunks, using time and sleep as tools for resting and recharging to help me best attack the next part of my assignment.
As for sitting in class for 80 minutes straight, that was nearly impossible, especially when I was first getting back into school. My solution to that issue was that I had the ability to leave class at any time to walk around. I was also able to carry snacks and drinks on me at all times. These arrangements fixed a number of major issues, as I kept myself hydrated, fueled, and relaxed throughout all class sections.
Whenever I wasn’t feeling good, I could get up, walk out of class, and reset. Sometimes I would visit the learning support room and hang out, other times I would walk around then sit down and take deep breaths. If I was doing really poorly, I might’ve gone to the nurse’s office and laid down. The nurses knew my family and me well too, so if I needed to leave school for the day, that was a process that was low-stress.
A key part of my individual plan was maintaining consistent communication with my teachers about my assignments. It wasn’t too easy for my teachers because I was taking tests home and turning homework in late, but communicating with them in person, through email, and through my learning support specialist, Mrs. Kelly, allowed for clarity with regards to due dates and new assignments. Mrs. Kelly was an awesome go-between and would often turn in assignments late after I’d completed them. She would also collect them from my teachers for me when I was absent or out of class. It helped me beyond explanation to have the support of a counselor when dealing with busy teachers who may not have understood my situation at times.
I have to give my teachers credit too for being understanding and working with me, though. I am incredibly grateful for the compassion shown by my parents, the guidance office, learning support, and my teachers. We all worked as a team to make my experience the best it could be.
In my senior year, when I was back in school full-time, I still used my accommodations, just not to the same degree as I had previously. I took my more challenging tests in a Testing Room where I had, once again, incredible support and individual freedom. I was free to walk around and take breaks as needed, and I was able to finish almost all of my exams and essays the same day I started them. Since I was in class full-time, I was no longer behind on assignments or homework, which, looking back, was a satisfying step of progress from my junior to senior year.
If you can work in any way with your guidance department, administration, or individual teachers, I would encourage you to try. By talking to them, it helped me to explain all of the ways my invisible illness limited me in comparison to other students. The backing of medical records with a doctor’s signature lent credibility to my requests.
Getting accommodations can be extremely difficult, and my situation might be the exception, not the rule, with regards to how cooperative my school was with my situation. However, even getting one teacher to understand and getting her help can make a tremendous difference in the ability to get into school and keep up with assignments and classes.
College has been a bit different for me. I had the same medical records as I did in high school, and all I had to do was go to our Services for Students with Disabilities office and meet with a coordinator. The counselor there listened to my story, asked how my symptoms affected my academic life, and asked how accommodations could help me. After our discussion, I was basically allowed to pick my own accommodations! I opted for starting with time-and-a-half on tests and taking exams in a quiet accommodations room. I was told that in the future, if I needed more accommodations, all I had to do was communicate that to my counselor and I could obtain more time and individual flexibility.
How have accommodations affected me in college? Well, extra time was tremendously helpful in one of my most challenging classes, as it allowed me to space out my test-taking time so I didn’t absolutely kill my brain in an hour. The exam was still extremely cognitively demanding, and I was pressed for time, but it was a big help nonetheless. On other tests, I was more comfortable with the subject matter and was able to breeze through my exams. The quiet, distraction-free room definitely helped in every situation, but I especially appreciated the ability to stay late on one test and leave early on others — it was the ultimate form of individual academic freedom!
Something I struggled with was the idea that I was giving myself an unfair advantage with my accommodations and I wasn’t truly earning the grades I was getting. Over time, I’ve come around to thinking accommodations shouldn’t be looked at as cheating or as taking the easy way out; rather, they’re a necessary component of leveling the playing field for students with differing limitations. Chronic illness may be invisible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Making the game fair for oneself by individualizing the academic process is a way to make school much more manageable and enjoyable.
3. Use Socialization as a Distraction
The most underrated component of school for my overall health and well-being was how it served as a distraction from my symptoms. After living a fairly isolated life in my junior year, I forgot how great it was to see my friends in class and at lunch. The combination of hanging out, goofing off, learning things together, and feeding off the energy of my peers made my symptoms “disappear” from time to time. When I was able to completely immerse myself in my work or my conversations, I stopped thinking about my pain. Even a few seconds was a big deal for me.
I believe an important part of normalizing life with chronic illness is getting back into social settings. Friends can allow us to escape our own thoughts, and I often find that I smile and laugh much more when I am around my buddies, or even any group of people my age. Additionally, being with other people can help us to develop perspective and remember that other people are fighting silent battles too. Sometimes, I have even found that someone in the room is suffering more than I am, and that thought radically changes the way I view my own circumstances. It helps to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.
The diversity of classrooms and academic settings allow for people to have a large group of people to which they can potentially relate. I found the socialization aspect of school to be a fun component that served as a distraction from symptoms, as well as an arena in which I had a newfound appreciation for those around me, especially people who I could relate to through a level of silent suffering.
4. Pack Salt, Water, and Snacks
I’m sure many people already do this, but I thought it was worth mentioning because of the impact packing nutrients can provide. Every day for school, I would pack a lunch with snacks for every 1-2 hours along with a reusable water bottle that I would fill up about every hour. Additionally, I would sometimes have a Gatorade or Propel sports drink to boost my electrolytes. I’ve since soured on drinking sports drinks, as I’m of the opinion that they are sugar bombs that can contribute to a rush and crash cycle, but I know they can be super helpful to some people.
For good snack ideas, fruit, nuts and nut butters, vegetables, RX Bars, and greek yogurts are always at the top of my list as healthy, energy-sustaining, snacks. I would take 1000 mg salt pills with some water with breakfast and lunch, but if that is tough on your stomach, pack some salty snacks to go along with your meals. Beef jerky is a favorite of mine! This is also something the POTS community does a great job of — check out other blogs, Reddit posts, and Facebook pages for awesome ideas for food, fluids, and ways to carry all of them! What I just mentioned may not suit your dietary tastes or needs, so keep in mind that’s what works for me and something else may work for you!
5. Take Breaks to Walk Around and Breath
Last but not least — we can remember school is a major challenge and a significant stressor on the body. Especially when building back up to a normal schedule, it’s important to take breaks. I found walking around, sitting down in a chair outside of class, taking deep breaths, listening to music, and talking to a counselor all to be useful strategies for dealing with brain fog, fatigue, headaches, and any pain that was brought up by stress. As mentioned earlier, I was fortunate enough to have the freedom to do all of this during normal class time, which was a huge benefit of accommodations. However, even just walking to the bathroom and taking some deep breaths was always an effective tool for me. I sometimes even tried mini-meditations to clear my mind, slow my heart rate, and take control of my autonomic nervous system!
I would take breaks at school as well as at home when doing any school work. I started very small and built up over time, as I did in many different areas of my life when I was most symptomatic with POTS. Breaks were always a great way to reset my mind and alleviate some of the stress put on my brain and body by work. Today, I am an advocate of using breaks at school and at work, and I typically will use a few minutes every half hour-hour to do some stretching, quick exercise, or browse my phone to find something that interests or entertains me and takes my mind off of my work. Whatever works for you is best, so I encourage you to try some different break strategies wherever you are and see how they help you. Whether you’re in school or not, taking a break is a good decision to make!
Let me know in the comments section: What’s your experience with school been like?
Additionally, please reach out if you want more information on accommodations with high school and college, applying to college, or anything else in this post or past posts!
Thank you for reading, and I’m incredibly grateful for all of the feedback and support I’ve gotten. Please keep it up — support makes my day and puts a smile on my face, and feedback helps to improve the blog for all future readers!
Have a great week, and my thoughts and prayers go out to you wherever you are on your journey.