At one point in your life, you’ve been sick.
That’s an undeniable fact.
I beg forgiveness from those that suffer from chronic, ongoing conditions. Today, I want to compare what it was like to be sick as a child versus being sick as an adult. Whatever I mention, know that I am speaking in the majority and I understand that there are all sorts of different ways this scenario could work out.
When I was a child, illness was both the best and worst thing to happen to me. It meant, without a doubt, that my next few days were probably going to make me feel miserable. Being sick often came with racking coughs that shook me from attempts at un-drugged slumber, or a nose so full of mucus that I felt like I was drowning.
Worst case scenario, I was going to develop a fever if I had not already. A fever was a mess where I was both burning up and mildly cold. Another possibility was that I was going to upheave my sick.
It is not fun to be ill of the stomach, especially as time wears on and I could no longer eat or drink because I couldn’t keep anything down. Being sick as a child was not always a world ending event though.
There were undeniable pros to catching a bug or having a cold-like allergic reaction to the uptick in pollen. My parents, whom I love dearly, became extra kind to their ill child.
My younger sister was reminded to develop a sense of grim compassion.
Neither of us liked it when the other grew sick because it meant that the healthy one was going to have to cover both sets of chores for the time being. This did not happen in my family often, but sometimes a pro to being sick was that I got to miss a day of school.
When I was younger, it was like some gift giving holiday had come early.
As I entered my late high school years though, it became a burden to be ill enough to miss school. I began to take honors classes and to miss a day of that class set me behind a day’s work that became increasingly harder to make up.
Aiding this, my school had a harsh policy for the kids who called in sick. If you did not procure a doctor’s note within three days, you were marked inexcusably out. They had little sympathy for the families that could not afford to drag a child in for every little sniffle.
By senior year, with two AP classes on the line, I fought with myself to stay in school, even when I was half-delirious with allergies.
College has been a lot different. I avoided getting sick the entire first semester, somehow dodging a nasty strain of possibly the flu. I have all my vaccines, and I am proud of that.
Being mostly independent means that it is on my shoulders to procure a shot against the flu. This slipped my mind, and I got lucky. Being away from home means that I’m in charge of myself, and that I am responsible for stocking up for an outbreak.
I avoided doing such a thing.
For as long as I can remember, I have had a short run-in with the pollen eruption usually every spring. As of the past few years, I have sometimes developed a second reaction during the Indian summers of early fall. I have in my desk drawer a bottle of 400 ibuprofen and 80 cough drops.
That was the extent of my preparation for the inevitable miniature apocalypse.
It began on Sunday. I had to cancel an already delayed reunion with my sister because I felt like death was ringing my bell. This was what I thought death was like: A slightly itching throat, a headache, repetitive sneezing and a lack of energy. I hoped that whatever this was would run its course by the end of Monday.
As I write this, I have to report that, if anything, it has only gotten worse. My throat is closed up, my nose is stuffed and dripping and I am having difficulty expelling mucus, to name a few of my ailments.
As I mentioned, I was ill-prepared and life was happy to let me know. I feared going to class on Monday. Especially when I awoke and my throat felt like it was closed off.
The thing in college is that I am responsible for my actions. I can no longer blame anyone else for when the bottom falls out, and I tumble to my doom. I was in control of whether or not I went to class or took a sick day.
I refused to allow myself such a luxury. I reminded myself that it was not like high school, when I was trapped in a brick prison for seven of the longest hours.
I went to my classes, even though a part of me instantly regretted it.
I annoyed my unfortunate classmates with loud, disruptive and volatile coughs and sneezes.
I did this because I am paying several thousand dollars to be here, and not even death could stop me from trying to make something of my enormous debt.
Because as we grow older, things change.
Sometime we’re not happy with these changes, and we want to reflect on what was instead of facing the facts. I cannot dwell on my childhood forever, though my mother likes to say that after kindergarten I often liked to remind her that I wanted to go back.
Unfortunately, they have not invented a time machine that would make such a feat impossible.
I am an adult now, and everything I do now casts its shadow back on me.
