Me calling your man while I’m still bed-ridden with the plagué

“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind,” Albert Einstein (the Genius™) once said. No one is more well acquainted with such creative stimulation than the sick college student. Bwog Staffer Leo Bevilacqua guides us through one of the most exciting parts of our lives: sickness.  

You are woken up. The alarm still hasn’t gone off but your coughing and wheezing has woken up your now irate roommate. You haven’t interacted since move-in day and now, face mask adorned, he is offering you a tissue box and a Purell bottle. He scurries out of the room and leaves you in darkness. Then it hits you: you’re ill (and not in the cool way).

You look around. No one. Mom’s not here and neither is her chicken noodle soup. You sit in your own sweat wondering what to do. You are stuck. Learning how to do your laundry was hard enough, but this! And during midterms!? You immediately email all your teachers, politely letting them know you are doing a public service by not showing up and going full Linda Blair in their lecture halls. In your sickened state, you accidentally address emails to the wrong teachers, but you are too sick to care. Your anxiety begins to add to your sickness when you realize all the work you are missing.

When your cycle of worrying and intellectualizing the consequences of your illness dies down, you try again to brainstorm how to feel better. After a quick call from Mom, you turn to the health services website looking for available appointments with newfound hope. You are disheartened, once again, when you realize that unless your condition is life threatening, the next available appointment is a month before graduation. You panic. Your coughing gets worse, and, at this point, you’re run out of tissues and lozenges. You go on WebMD and type in your symptoms – only to find out you potentially have scarlet fever, smallpox, and the West Nile Virus. More paranoid than ever, you slap on a pair of ridiculously overpriced sweatpants from the bookstore and an equally lush, baggy hoodie and head to Urgent Care.

Mistaking you for a drug addict, Urgent Care decides to book you last. After waiting for what feels like an eternity and then waiting in another room for an hour, the doctor finally comes in. He is overly friendly and makes way too much small talk before sticking a strep test down your throat, causing you to gag and almost throw up last night’s JJ’s excursion on his white lab coat. After conducting a number of increasingly uncomfortable medical tests, you are alone again. The doctor says you just have the cold and sends you on your way. Apparently, rest, fluids, and soft foods are the extent of the treatment despite your out-of-control coughing. Despite submitting your insurance information, the copay is three figures long and you are out of money for the rest of the month. More angry than ever, you head back to your shafted double.

Suddenly, the cavernous elements of your room no longer bother you as you slip under your comforter and enjoy the actually only good part of being sick. You are now with your four best friends: your laptop with Netflix loading, your smart phone with Postmates loading, your lifetime supplies of tissues beside you, and of course your bed. Despite all these comforts, you still feel horrible and feel that at any moment you may cough up a lung. At some point, you fall asleep from sheer exhaustion only to wake up coughing with more vigor and intensity. All your friends ask why you’ve been such  a bum, missing class all week. None of them believe you or ask how you are. You are alone. Nihilism kicks in.

(Repeat until you feel better.)

Sick man via salary.com