The other day I was sitting minding my own business on my couch like I always do. I'm sitting with my family, laughing with my friends, casually eating some snacks. When suddenly, I feel it. The faint unnatural tickle at the back of my throat. I can feel the unsettling dread coming into my stomach as I inevitably know what is coming. A sore throat, the stuffed up nose, and the pain of existing while being sick. And then, almost worse than being sick is the threat of still being sick at college. I get colds way too much, like the amount that causes me to keep medication in my bed pouch to always have it near. And yet despite that, I still seem to go through these stages every single time I am just a little bit ill.
1. I feel slightly tired and worn out but I'm going to ignore it.
This is a lie. A blatant lie that I should not tell myself, but I do because I still have work to do and cannot lay in bed all day due to being a college student.
2. It's nothing, I'll be fine. Tomorrow this will have gone away
By this point I am usually in bed, using copious amounts of nose spray while at the same time denying that I need said nose spray.
3. O.K. O.K. this is starting to be worrying now.
Help! Someone! Anyone! I literally just walked into my own door because my eyes hurt so much that I couldn't open them to see.
4. But medication is for babies! I have the immune system of a steel tank!
Peoples bodies fought off sickness for thousands of years! Why do I need Dayquill? I got this. I don't even need vitamin C!
5. Mom!!!!
I was wrong. It was all a lie. I am very sick. I want to go home. I should drop out, Momm., you must come save me from school.
6. How have I run out of medication already?
How was one packet of medication not enough? This is an injustice, I am sick! Don't they know that I had to drag myself out of bed, put pants on, and go to the store, just so that I could run out of medication in my time of need?
7. This is it. It is the end. Cancel everything. Plan the funeral.
I have finished with my life. My hopes have been dashed. I have gotten a cold, and I am going to die from it. It does not matter that this is extremely rare and almost nobody dies from colds, because I will.
8. Finally, I can sort of almost breathe again.
I forgot what it was like to breathe, was it always this nice? I am going to take 15 vitamins a day so I never ever get sick again. I refuse to be like the sad dragon in the gif above...
9. I have survived a great triumph and conquered worlds! I was dead but am now alive
I have been made stronger by this illness! Bring it on, winter allergies. I'll be ready for you.
10. Eh now that I'm over it, it really wasn't that bad, next time I won't need the medication.
So like a boss, I won't buy more and then next time this entire cycle will begin again. Someday, I hope, my moms attitude about sickness will be beaten into me and I will learn to have a giant medication drawer with everything I could possibly need for the next twenty plus years. But till then, I'm here stuffy nose and all!