Struggling with OCD....please help

[1styearmale]

Hi everyone, I'm new to posting but I've been a big fan of allnurses.com since I began my nursing career. I really need some advice about a personal issue. To give you a brief history, I was diagnosed with OCD in 2001, and have been seeing a primary care physician ever since. I have been very active in managing this, and have done quite well. I managed to get a bachelor's degree in 4 years ('01-'05) and work full time as an ER Tech for two years, all with my OCD under control.

I was accepted into a nursing program on the East Coast in September, in a town that is a few hours away from where I am from. My Doctor suggested that I only see him every six months, since my health was good going into school. My first quarter went really well, my grades were good and there were no complaints or special concerns from the faculty. Throughout this past Winter Quarter, I noticed my test grades were not where they usually have been in the past. After every test, I met with my advisor, who is also one of the head instructors for our class. I told her I was really struggling with my approach to studying. There are no outside factors that are getting in the way here, I live alone, I do not work, and I do not have a family to take care of. So finding the time to study has not been an issue.

OCD is a hard thing to explain to people who have never seen or experienced it, so I'll do my best to give some insight. I have always had unusual OCD related methods of studying, and as weird as they were they were pretty effective in the past. This quarter however, for whatever reason, I seemed to be really overly consumed with the organization and structure of my approach to retaining information, much more so than in the past. It progressively got worse and worse, and eventually reached a tipping point last week, right before our 4^th test, to where I was having extreme difficulty even leaving my apartment.

So when our exams were handed out, getting through the exam was a huge struggle. I filled out my exam sheet, and waited to fill in my scantron until the end of the exam (like I usually do). This time, I lost track of time, and when the instructor told us we had 5 minutes left, I hadn't filled in a single answer. I told her this, and did my best to fill in the remaining questions.

The person administering the exam quickly went to the Level I faculty and mentioned that there was definitely something really wrong with me that day. My sister, who is a Nurse Practitioner and has some background into what I've been dealing with, called my advisor and told her what had been going on. Both my sister and advisor suggested that I meet with the Disabilities Support Services on Campus, to discuss what had happened. I did the very next day, and I had my Doctor fax over all relevant information regarding what he is treating me for. The head of the Disabilities Department informed me that I would be getting accommodations to help me in the testing environment, which I think would be very helpful. However, I would have to take my final two tests with the class and wait until next quarter to get accommodated. I wrote an appeal to the Level I faculty about my performance on my test, and included how I planned to meet with my Doctor over Spring Break to make the necessary adjustments needed to get on top of things. I'm in good standing with the faculty in every other area of the program, I have not had any special concerns or write ups, and they know I went to them early for help. In retrospect, I should have brought up my medical issue earlier, but honestly I'm not the best judge of my own health when it comes to my OCD, and I didn't notice it escalating.

I took my final today and did ok, not steller, but not horrible considering the circumstances of the past two weeks. The unfortunate thing about our program is that if you do not reach the 75% test average, not only do you do not advance, but you have to wait an entire year to reapply and retake the quarter. I wanted to post this and ask for advice about what my chances are during this appeal. Sorry this is so lengthy, its just that the turn of events in the last week has been a very, very bitter pill to swallow. I am not giving up on Nursing, not by a long shot. But it would be crushing to if I had to wait an entire year to retake this quarter. Thanks.

Peter