This week has probably been one of the most harrowing weeks of my life. There was a near-natural disaster, a heart-stopping incident with a laptop, a beef with financial aid, and an on-going sinus infection that wreaked havoc on my body the whole week through.

Also, did I mention that my birthday was that coming Friday?

It all began on a Sunday. 7am I got an alert on my phone about a tornado warning. I leapt out of bed, sans, pants and I’d gotten one leg through a pair of hot pink, kitty-patterned pj bottoms when my roommate was standing in the doorway of my bedroom, terrified. Outside the wind was whipping the rain so hard against the windows that it sounded like hail. I finished putting on my pj bottoms and grabbed some shoes while my roommate was frantically trying to locate that cat to toss her into a carrier. We both then hustled out of the apartment and down the stairwell to sit under the stairs, huddled beneath blankets with our phones clutched tightly in our hands.

While the storm raged on outside, we called our family, kept an eye on weather alerts, and tentatively watched episodes of How I Met Your Mother on my roommate’s phone until it was safe enough to go back upstairs. We probably sat down there for over an hour, but finally the weather lightened up and it seemed that all was well.

Back up the stairs we went, crawling back into our beds that called to us as the heaviness of sleep tugged at our eyelids and the adrenaline left our bodies. It wasn’t thirty minutes later, though, that we received another warning. With a groan I rolled out of bed and back down the stairs we went. The sky had gone from light grey to purple almost instantly as the second wave of the storm came through. We waited, and waited, and waited, until finally my roommate decided that her fear had left her and we went back upstairs. I had decided that if the tornado was coming, it could take me to Oz. I wanted to sleep.

Luckily, we didn’t experience much damage due to the tornadoes. (Surrounding areas did, though, and I encourage you to help out if you can). Monday classes were cancelled, though. And it was then that I began to develop some allergy-like symptoms that made me feel slightly miserable, but otherwise not terribly bothered. If only I knew what was to come for me as the week progressed.

Tuesday was probably the worst incident. I had come home with McDonalds, intending to eat a quick bite before the ballet rehearsal I’m assistant stage managing for. I opened up my beloved Macbook Air, which I’ve not owned even a year yet, onto my bed so I would catch on on some Youtube videos while I ate. In my lethargic fatigue, I placed my sweet tea on my beside table, which is slightly higher than my bed. Then the unthinkable happened.

It was as if timed had slowed. I watched my sweet tea tip over the edge of the table and spill all over my open laptop. The laptop shut off immediately. I lept up and shook the tea off of the keyboard and sopped up the excess with what I think was a blanket. My heart was hammering in my chest. I dried it off as best I could and turned it upside down and placed it in front of the box fan in my room. I called my mother in hysterics. Together she and I did research on what to do and I reached out to my Facebook friends for suggestions. Many said to put it in rice, although I didn’t have a large enough bucket or a big enough bag of rice to use on a 13 inch Macbook. As of the time I am writing this, I still haven’t gotten the courage to try and turn it on. I pray all hope is not lost.

Fast-forward to Wednesday. The time has come for refund checks. College students across the nation rejoice as they finally get access to money to pay for books, supplies, groceries, and rent. I had always calculated my refund based on the negative amount found in my student account page. The school sent out emails confirming that checks would be processed Friday. Oh joy, my refund comes in on my birthday! But then I look at my total refund that is listed on the email, and my heart stops- it’s two thousand dollars less than what I had anticipated.

I immediately freak out, emailing the bursary demanding answers and panicking on how I’m going to pay rent and utilities for the semester. As a theatre major, I don’t have time for a job. My refund check is my livelihood while I’m at school. I call my mom in hysterics for the second time in a week, my voice akin to a frog’s at this point due to severe congestion and coughing from an undiagnosed sinus infections. Then I received a reply to my email. I ran out of the Hope scholarship. My total hours just tipped over the 127 hour limit for this, my very last semester at college. How cruel this week has been to me.

Thursday rolls around and I can’t take it anymore. Between the stress of school, my reluctance to try to turn my laptop on lest it really and truly be fried, my loss of two thousand dollars that I had not anticipated, and the growing congestion, nose-blowing, and hacking cough that kept me up all hours of the night-

I needed to go to the doctor.

Thank god for the Student Health Center. They immediately diagnosed me with a sinus infection, hooked me up with a z-pack, flonase, and a cough suppressant. I went back home, happy with my drugs, and took everything I needed to before sleeping for a solid four hours. No classes were attended, no hours were put in the costume shop that I work in at school. I just rested, and boy did I feel good afterwards. As of this moment I still have a slight affectation to my speech from a stuffy nose and the back of my throat still tickles, but I’m doing much better than I was.

Then Friday comes. For the first time all week I get up early, put makeup on my face, do my hair, and wear something cute. I check Facebook to find dozens of birthday wishes. I call my parents and my dad sings “Happy Birthday” to me in the most off-key, endearing way he knows how. I walk into the costume shop and they’ve got tiramisu, my favorite dessert, waiting for me. My roommate calls me and tells me she’s treating me to something special Saturday. My hearts swells, my eyes water, and I genuinely smile and laugh for the first time in days. I’m writing this at 2:30 in the afternoon on Friday and I don’t know what the rest of this day will bring me. But despite all of the terror, shock, despair, sickness, and helplessness I’ve felt this week, today, my birthday, I’m feeling so much love around me. My heart is full of gratitude. The tension I’ve carried all week is slowly rolling off my back like water on a duck. Despite what the rest of my week has been like, I welcome my 23rd year of life with open arms, surrounded by people who love me.