If there's one thing that college kids know about, it's working through the pain and sleeplessness of sickness while still functioning as a semi-normal human.
And when it comes time to use your cumulative knowledge to do the most projects and take the most important tests of the entire semester, it's also usually time for you to get sick.
You get an average of three or four hours of sleep every night, you drink too much caffeine to compensate, you stress eat to deal with the horrors of finals week and everyone else does the same. Put all of these factors together and you've got a campus full of exhausted kids with depleted immune systems. Before you know it, you wake up feeling like death and looking desperately for a way to avoid getting out of bed.
Left alone and self-medicated, there are more than a few things running through your mind.
1. How long before I die?
Seriously, forget about finals. I am literally dying.
Plus, if I die, they'll probably just give me an honorary degree. And then I won't have to take these finals. Or write this paper. Or ever get out of bed ever again.
2. I wonder how many grams of sugar are in a cough drop.
I've gone through this entire bag of cough drops, and at this point they actually taste pretty OK. How much sugar do they have to put into these to make them taste good? Are my tastebuds failing? Oh God.
3. How many tiny cups of DayQuil can I take before I die? Can I take DayQuil and Tylenol at the same time?
Because no joke, I took DayQuil like an hour ago and I feel nothing. Actually that's not true. I feel sickness. A lot of sickness.
4. I wonder if I'll ever be able to sleep without NyQuil again. Am I addicted to NyQuil? Is that possible?
I mean really this stuff is great. One minute I'm wondering how I'll ever fall asleep, and the next minute, I'm.. zzz...
5. Wait. If I'm addicted to NyQuil, does that mean I'm addicted to meth?!
Oh God I have to stop binging on "Breaking Bad." and using NyQuil. Or maybe just one more episode. And one more bottle...
6. I shouldn't be around other people right now. I can't go to my study group. But if I don't go, I will definitely fail.
Sorry everybody. You'll have to take extra time to explain all of this material to me. And in doing so, you'll be getting the plague I've been transferring into the air around me for the last 10 minutes.
7. When was the last time I felt normal?
I don't remember a time before I was sick. I don't remember a time before finals week. When was the last time I was happy? What is happiness?
8. You can do this. Get through these finals and it's summer. Then you can sleep all you want. Take another shot of DayQuil, and let's go do this before you lose your motivation.
One. More. Final.
If you're sick right now and trying to get through your finals, know that you're not alone! You can do this, and if you're really struggling, there's probably a convenience store down the street. Go get some more DayQuil. You can wean yourself off later.
