The sun is shining, the temperature is rising well above the 50s, and it's beautiful outside. But you're stuck inside battling a cold and writing a 10 page paper. Finals suck, but they suck much more when you're sick and all of your friends are outside soaking up the sun and enjoying their lives.
Here are the 10 stages of being sick during finals:
Stage 1: When you feel it coming.
You wake up one morning with a stuffy nose and a dry throat. You blame it on allergies, pop a Claritin, chug a bottle of water and head to class.
Stage 2: The beginning of the end.
After two days of waking up every morning with "allergy" symptoms you wake up feeling worse than before. Your nose is so stuffed you cant breathe and the sinus pressure hurts so much you want to cry. You know what's about to happen and no amount of Mucinex or tea can help.
Stage 3: Cant get out of bed.
At this point in the semester you cant afford to skip any more classes. Every other class there's a group project due, or a final exam or a paper. Regardless of how ill you feel or how many tissues surround your body, you need to trudge on and fill your body with vitamin C and cold medicine.
Stage 4: Oh god, I have six papers due this week.
You finally leave your bed and head over to class. You walk in and your teacher reminds you about the 10 page paper due tomorrow at midnight. You go to fill the reminder into your planner and then see five more deadlines due on the same week. Your eyes widen in horror as you realize that due to your illness you haven't been able to start any of your work. You head over to the pharmacy, pick up a fresh bottle of Dayquil and chug on.
Stage 5: When your friends ask you to "dage"
It's 80 degrees outside, the sun is shining and you finally feel okay enough to leave your bed. Your friends come and find you and ask you to go out and "dage" (day-rage). You look at your pile of assignments and the deadlines hanging over your head, then turn back inside grab your text books and head to the library as your friends go and party.
Stage 6: Please help me, I’m dying.
It's 2 a.m., you're five out of seven pages into the paper due tomorrow. You begin to stare at the blinking clicker on your computer as the library announces that they're closed for the night. The realization dawns on you that you've been in the library for almost 12 hours straight now, and have only finished one and a half of the six projects you have due. You long for your bed, as the cushy pillows and soft comforter mock you while you finish writing your papers.
Stage 7: Dayquil cannot help me at this point.
Everything hurts. You wake up with aches and pains covering every inch of your body. You roll around and find piles upon piles of used tissues. You search everywhere for a tissue to blow your nose but you cant, before resorting to toilet paper from the closest bathroom. You grow nauseous at the sight of cold medicine, and all you want to do is lie in bed all day.
Stage 8: I need to sleep, but I still have two papers and an exam left.
Congrats you finished most of your papers! The sun is shining its a beautiful day!! Except you still have more work to do. And that cold? It's still there (I told you that Mucenix wasn't going to help). Pick up a new box of tissues, fill that travel mug with tea. Maybe you'll be home before 1 a.m. tonight.
Stage 9: Screw responsibility and enjoy your day
You finally finished all of those papers, you only have 2 exams left but they're not for another week. You can see the end of your cold since you no longer wake up and need to chug cold medicine. You deserve this day! You swipe into the dining hall, grab an ice cream cone and spend one nice day outside before you bury yourself in work again
Stage 10: Sleep for the next six weeks.
This is it. You're finally finished. No more papers, no more group projects. The taste of cold medicine is finally gone from your memory and you shove the bottle to the back of the closet. Your bed is empty, no more tissues cluttering the sheets. The pages of your planner are empty as well, you have nothing left to do. You open up your laptop, go to Netflix and fall asleep as your favorite show (Parks and Rec maybe?) lulls you to sleep. You survived!
