Why Being Sick in College Is the Absolute Worst
In college, you encounter hundreds of different scenarios that make you realize how independent you are and how “adult” you are supposed to act. Some of these situations make you feel wise beyond your years and ready to conquer the world. Others make you want to crawl up on your futon eating fruit snacks while watching cartoon reruns under your blankie.
College is difficult. It makes you grow up and makes you rely more on yourself and less on others. Your parents, although only a phone call away, cannot take care of you like the good ole days. They can’t make everything better, and they can’t take away your pain, stress, and worry. Perhaps, they can ease it, but you are still left to deal with your life yourself.
Being sick away from home for the first time is one of those lessons learned in college. It is one of those scenarios that make you realize how “adult” you are. It is one of those situations that make you want to stay in bed and have your mom bring you soup.
When you’re sick in college, it actually is the absolute worst. And here’s why:
You need to take yourself to the doctor’s.
The last thing you want to do when you are sick is drag yourself out of your dorm room and walk to Redfern Health Center. For some of us that can be a really long walk from our cozy beds and warm blankets. It means walking across campus feeling like a sick dog and avoiding eye contact with all you meet. It’s miserable.
Once you get to the doctor’s office, you must describe all of your symptoms by yourself. Gone are the days when you look to your mom to answer all the doctor’s questions. Instead, you have to list off the reasons you aren’t feeling well while trying to separate the immense stress and work you are under resulting from the typical college student’s life. You constantly remind yourself to relate only the life problems relating to your illness rather than life in general. The doctors don’t have all day.
After all your symptoms are listed, you need to actively pay attention as the doctor describes what is wrong with you and what to do in order to feel better. And this takes a lot of focus especially when you are feeling so terrible. You have to make sure you understand what medications to take and what medications to avoid. If you weren’t tired already, you sure are by now.
You cannot stay in bed for days.
Going away to college is great! However, you must remember that you are essentially living at school. Your whole life revolves around your campus and the surrounding area. You have responsibilities both academically and socially. Some classes have mandatory attendance policies and plenty of assignments. Add in the extra- curricular activities that flood your schedule and you can be certain you don’t have time for a sick day.
Missing class in college for sick days is actually more stressful than going to lecture while sick. Somehow you find the energy to make it to class even if it’s just enough to sit in class and scribble the minimal amount of notes.
You have to monitor your own meds.
I don’t know about you, but when I was young and ill, my parents would come in my room and hand me the specific medications that I needed to take. In my mind, my parents were doctors because they knew exactly what to do in order to make sure I felt better. I didn’t have to look at the clock or set timers to remind myself when I took which medications.
It’s so much harder in college. You’re juggling several things at once and sometimes you forget to take your medicine. Therefore, a simple cold lasts longer because you don’t have the time or energy to focus on getting rid of it as soon as it appears.
You tend to avoid other people.
People are everywhere in college! You don’t want to make anyone else miserable and sick. You also don’t have the energy to be around people when you feel so terrible.
Therefore, you avoid them. And sometimes they avoid you. You don’t blame them though because you would rather not be sick either. You understand. Unless your best friend happens to be sick at the same exact time as you, being sick is pretty much incredibly lonely.
You cannot rely on your parents to take care of you.
The absolute worst part about sick in college is that you don’t have your parents around to take care of you. Its something often taken for granted in middle/high school when we were sick. Regardless, you don’t realize how much you counted on your parents to nurse you back to health then. You don’t realize this until you’re completely on your own in college.
As soon as you start feeling sick, you’re on the phone with your mother describing symptoms and asking what medicine to take. You pretty much rely on your parents’ health advice over the phone as you complain about a sore throat or a sinus infection. All you want is your mom to make you soup as you lay in bed under your covers. It’s the simple things about life at home that we begin to miss when we’re away at college. If anything, it makes us appreciate our parents and all they did for us all those years that much more. Thank goodness for care packages!
So, if you’re feeling sick this time of year (and most of us are), hang in there! You can handle this, and after several phone calls to your parents, you’ll be feeling better in no time!