Last week I was diagnosed with "the kissing disease," also known as mononucleosis. Mono is caused by the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) and is transmitted most commonly through saliva. It affects your lymphatic system, swelling glands in your neck; your digestive system, making it difficult to keep any food down; and your respiratory system, causing congestion and coughs. In a nutshell, mono is horrible, and it forbids you from doing a lot of things including the following:
1. Saying, "I'll text you tomorrow!"
It's the emptiest promise you'll ever tell because you'll probably sleep until 4 in the afternoon, be up for one hour and then sleep until the next morning.
2. Eat.
Being able to eat anything without throwing up is a talent with mono. Tears will be shed upon seeing friends or family eating a cheeseburger. Click the link for a video of me crying because my sister was eating a burger.
3. Be comfortable.
With an on-and-off fever, you'll go from sweating to freezing in about 30 seconds flat.
4. Talk.
The ridiculous amounts of coughing and hacking lead to a lot of stress on your throat and vocal chords. When your voice finally starts to come back, you sound like a preteen finally hitting puberty.
5. Go to the gym or do any sort of physical activity.
This is not a problem for me, but in theory the strenuous activity could rupture your spleen, killing you.
6. Go to the pool.
Summertime, right? Going to the beach with friends, or your local pool is a staple among summertime activities. You risk spreading it to your friends, strangers and children through the water, and swimming can earn you a ruptured spleen.
So in conclusion, mononucleosis sucks. It's kept me out of work for over a week, kept me from seeing friends and kept me from eating. The only benefit is that I definitely caught up on all the sleep I've missed. So what I've learned was to not share your cups unless you hate yourself.
