As February has begun, school is back in full swing with only a snow day or a holiday like President’s Day to break up the stream of work. Many students are at full capacity with multiple homework assignments, tests and projects. Already, some students cannot handle this work. But for Chloe Descher, junior, she had to worry about this, and more.

For the past few months, Descher has been going to the doctor to figure out what’s wrong with her stomach. She has experienced this pain for a number of years, but it finally reached a point where she decided medical intervention was needed.

After numerous visits and attempts at fixing the problem, the doctor decided in January that Descher should have surgery.

“Basically, my stomach wasn’t processing food right. It wasn’t emptying out at the right rate, so I had to have part of my stomach opened up wider to let food pass through,” Descher said.

This surgery, plus recovery time due to a negative reaction with anesthesia, caused Descher to be out for two weeks.

Descher returned to Lafayette last week to two weeks worth of make-up work while classes still progressed on despite her being behind.

Along with this, Descher devotes most of her after school time to being a flutist. She is apart of St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra,Jazz Band, Symphonic Band and was part of the pit orchestra for Lafayette’s production of Hairspray. She even qualified for the all-state competition this year but could not compete since she had to recover from her surgery.

Her absences and her involvement in all of these activities have made it extremely hard to make up her assignments.

“I’ve been trying to make up all my school work at the same time as the musical,” Descher said. “Math has been the hardest to make up because I missed three tests.”

Most assignments are in the testing center to take, which is open during the day and after school. But without a study hall or resource hour, Descher could only make tests and quizzes up after school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, which is also during the pit rehearsals.

With a lot of hard work, however, Descher is finally getting caught up.

“I’m doing a lot better now,” Descher said.