mom60 it seemed as if your family had found a good solution so my ps on migraines was mainly for others. My student graduated in 5 1/2 years and is now in a PhD program. A medication was finally found that worked pretty well. She has other medical issues. But in terms of migraines was fortunate to have a dean whose mother suffered bad ones and the dean was fierce in telling faculty to accommodate! She did always go to the college health services for treatment, and sometimes they would send her to the ER.
@psycholing - I think being in an area with good medical care should be on the top of the list. Also find out if the area the school is in has an adequate number of providers who take your insurance. One issue we encountered was that the UC system used another large insurance company for their plans so even though we had one of the largest insurance companies in the nation she could not find a provider in her college town. She had to drive to another city about 15 minutes away. She was lucky due to another accommodation was allowed to have a car on campus. Last year the UC switched to our insurance company and now she has plenty of providers available. (She has stayed in the area of her first school)
It reminds me of my oldest who spent a Katrina semester in a city that triggered her asthma. She was really sick and the health center sent her to the hospital in a taxi. The hospital provided her with a taxi back but after that she had a difficult time getting to follow up appointments. This might not be an issue any longer as this was pre Zip car or Uber days.
I also agree with @compmom that the girl in the article comes across as annoying and whining. That doesn’t mean I don’t think she has legitimate concerns and needs. The one thing I did take away from the article that my D also felt was that when your physical appearance doesn’t “appear” sick people discount your needs.
It is difficult for any of us, let alone a young person struggling with illness, to balance the need for strong advocacy, to gain rights, with the need to appear reasonable and fair, in order to gain good will.
It would seem from the experience I heard of the support group for students with disabilities, that there was a better outcome for those who were not angry or demanding. The hard part is, that demands are sometimes the only way to get results.
So I did not mean to sound critical of the young person in the article. But I do think, in her youth and amidst her struggles, that her anger comes through and may have made her a less effective advocate.
With proper documentation and testing, medical and academic staff will take those with invisible illness as seriously as they should. Paradoxically, we found that an unexpectedly radiant student with serious chronic conditions got more help than anticipated. No need for pallor and fainting on the couch, so to speak.
Family understanding, that is another matter!
Thanks everyone – your reassurance that the article is not representative of fine institutions of learning such as Harvard is truly reassuring for me. My older S also has disabilities, both medical and SLDs. I found that his college Disabilities Office was not so understanding at first for the SLD issues (we had to really fight for double time on tests, for example), but that they really came around when the medical issues came to the forefront. Younger son only has the medical, so I am not sure what to expect. The range of colleges he has been accepted at span from abroad in Scotand, to a few miles from our house. I am looking forward to having a final decision so that we can start planning the details of how he can stay healthy.