Illness in College
There's nothing worse than getting sick in college. Even if it's nothing big, it's still a huge pain in the ass. Not just because you're not feeling well and not able to do anything, but because of the work...
My sophomore year (so last year), I was hit with all the sicknesses.
The common cold:
Strep Throat:
Mono:
It just kept getting worse, but I figured if I got it all now, I wouldn't have to deal with being sick ever again! Last year was definitely rough for me, especially because the mono symptoms kicked in when I was traveling around Norway with my friend. I was super cranky and always wanted to sleep. I remember the last day we had in Oslo, we got back to our AirBnB around 4pm and I slept straight until the next morning.
The weird part was, I didn't think that anything was wrong! I just thought I was tired from traveling so much! But alas... That was not the case.
Upon returning to school, I was instructed, by Health Services, not to go to class until the fever went down. That was reasonable. I didn't want to infect anybody else with this sickness.
(Slight exaggeration)
Anyway, the point was I was instructed to miss as many days as I needed because my body was going to be spending a lot of time fighting the mono. MISS AS MANY DAYS AS POSSIBLE! Sounds amazing; it's not. I heard of people who contracted mono and missed weeks of school and I thought to myself, "How?!"
After missing one day, I already felt like I was behind. The second day, I checked that I had no fever and then dragged myself out of bed and to class. I made sure I was sufficiently separated from anybody else (even though my fever had gone down, I still didn't want people to contract the illness).
All of my professors were really nice about giving me extensions on my homeworks or even being able to email scans of it so I didn't have to walk all the way from Carmichael to 574 to hand them in. As a physics major, pretty much all of my classes are in 574 which is awesome because the building is awesome, but it was also so far away...
Honestly, I could handle the workload. What I couldn't handle was the social isolation. My weekends, for at least a the first two weeks, consisted of going downstairs to Carmichael dining hall, attempting to eat soup (but I ended up mainly drinking the broth since my tonsils were so swollen), going back upstairs, and watching Netflix and sleeping.
By week three, I still wasn't up to going out, but at least my friends were willing to sit near me as we ate! It was a big step forward.
So friends, the moral of the story is as follows:
- Make sure to do everything in your power not to get sick.
- If you do get sick, the professors are very understanding (as long as you have a note from Health Services) and are willing to help you out if need be.
- If you do get sick, Netflix will become your best friend. But also make an effort to still talk to your friends (even if they don't want to be around you because they themselves don't want to get sick).