When you're sick at college for the first time, there are usually two conflicting feelings. Winter of my freshman year, I caught a bug that stuck with me for weeks. My initial decision had been to accept the fact that I was now "adult" enough to take care of my crying, metaphorically speaking, stomach. Decisively, I only ate foods plain enough to be kind to my system, drank tons of water, and avoided using over-the-counter medicine, unless it was disrupting my sleep.
Sadly, the ailment struck on a Sunday morning and Health Services is only available to students on weekdays, during business hours. Bummer.
I didn't take the initiative to so much as call the health office until almost two weeks of attempting to mother myself had passed. Thankfully, I kept relatively calm for an eighteen year-old living on her own for the first time. By the spring, I was back to my giddy old self, eating all the margherita pizza, home fries, and, ahem, POD* cookies that the dining hall could offer.
If I could get through this rut, I could overcome anything life threw my way, right?
I felt determined, responsible, and in complete control of my life when I learned I could battle off a gastrointestinal disease while away from my loving parents and their aguita de manzanilla** back in NJ. Unshaken, I forged on into my sophomore year, where I was met by that second reaction that very, very many college students living away from home feel.
Being sick really challenged my confidence in my own survival skills. What was happening to me? I wanted to pack up and go home.
Something had changed. My surroundings were a little different as I settled into an apartment with my two best friends the following year. Naturally, we felt a little less connected from the school by living off-campus. Still, the walk was about the same from my old freshman residence hall and I was living with two of the greatest friends I could have asked for.
Getting sick was never any fun. But this just felt so out of my element. I recall feelings of loneliness and even despair when the medicine I took wouldn't knock out my cold so I could study in peace. Being ill meant isolating myself from others so I wouldn't contaminate them. It meant wearing an alarming face mask at the hospital I volunteered at and it meant not being able to sing in my a cappella group like I used to. To this day, I am curious as to how I handled a much worse case of the itis when I was eighteen as opposed to when I was nineteen or twenty, living even more independently.
When it came down to it, I had set my standards way too high for myself.
With every flu, headache, and sore throat, I am learning the value of my health and the inevitable vulnerability that comes with disease. I am finding new ways of taking care of runny noses and insomnia. I am learning to accept that I cannot avoid getting sick in a college setting and that I don't have to be my own miracle doctor every time.
While academics, campus involvement, and work are all very important, they are all dependent on a person's good health. This year, my junior/senior-but-actually-junior year, I am making it a point to watch out for my physical and mental well-being above all else. I may have champed it out my freshman year, but I now accept that this triumph won't be the case each time (Statistics for the Life Sciences may have helped me see that). One day, I'll be a seasoned healer of myself, my family, and, hopefully, my community. Until then, I will be getting plenty of hours of rest, killing off this cold! Achoooo!
*POD: Pulse On Dining, the official name of our dining hall as provided by the amazingly efficient and delightfully amicable Chartwells service. There is no doubt that the student body shares my deep appreciation for Chartwells. However, the name still has a bit of a cultural legacy to it that doesn't seem to age. Simply put, "it's DAKA".
**aguita de manzanilla: the tea of champions, otherwise known as chamomile tea.
