For anyone in college... how did you handle a dorm? Has anyone gotten special accommodations, private rooms with a bathroom, etc. How did you go about requesting that? Any advice is appreciated.
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
I'm in college and I'm in a dorm that has a bathroom in my room that I share with two other girls, so this might be a little different than some. I didn't get any special accommodations although I did find certain bathrooms around campus that were private and out of the way that I will go to!
Momma,
I attended the University of Connecticut 1981-1985 when my ulcerative colitis was at its peak ((although my colectomy didn’t happen until age 29). Back in those days, I lived in Sprague Hall which was an all-male dorm. UConn’s Office of Reaidential Life, I think based on a letter from my gastroenterologist at the time, acted upon my special request and gave me a “medical single” across the hall from the communal men’s bathroom. What this meant was I had a small room, and no roommate, in a dorm in which their were numerous single rooms (some of which were other guys with medical conditions and some were athletes on the school football and basketball team). It was a perfect arrangement because in those days pre - J Pouch I had to sprint to the bathroom and it was literally across the hall from me. The room was also adjacent to a payphone (cellphones didn’t exist at that time) and the front entrance to the dorm, so the downside to that arrangement was my room was in a high foot traffic area and also facing the street (Route 195) so was kind of noisy at times. But overall it worked out well and I lived in Sprague Hall for all 4 years.
Sprague Hall is still there at UConn, but I think it’s now co-ed (I could be wrong) and it’s definitely kept locked 24/7 (unlike when I was there).
I am sure most large universities could accomodate such a request. Make sure u get a letter from the GI and good luck.
I work at a university and help students with accomodarions like this. You should get documentation from the doctor and work with Residence Life to see if you can get a single. You can also work with the Center for Students with Disabilities, or something like that, because by law, they have to accommodate you based on the docs suggestions.
Good luck.
In the 90s when I was in college, I got a letter from my doc (I missed fall semester due to colon/pouch surgeries) that I needed easier access to a bathroom. Typically at the sophomore level you were getting put 4 people to a 2 bedroom apartment with 1 bathroom. I got permission to get a 1 bedroom, 2 people, 1 bathroom set up. After that my bathroom habits had pretty much normalized, so I never requested anything else special.
Adding on to the question - do people think they are better off sharing a bathroom with just a few people or better off a bigger bathroom that has more stalls? Also for Bubba1028 - can students get their own bathrooms ever if you know?
My personal opinion is you are better off with a bigger communal bathroom with numerous stalls (situation I had at UConn in post described above) than sharing a single toilet with a few people. Reason why is people with IBD tend to monopolize a toilet, as well as the omnipresent toilet availability issue. This was never an issue for me at UConn nor did I have to worry about someone being in a single toilet when I had to make the mad UC rush to the bathroom. UC is characterized by incontinence of a severe nature although pouchitis can also lead to incontinence. If there is a bunch of stalls and one is always free it’s a nonissue. For my condition a single toilet set up shared with others would not have worked well.