Under the Weather

My general appearance Monday morning

Here is something I have yet to post about: sickness on campus. For most students mama doesn't live close enough to come take care of them nor is it possible for her to make an emergency trek up to Union to pick them up and take them home. This leaves few options for the sick individual.
I bring this topic up today as I have a serious cold and while I live close enough where mama could come take care of me, I have opted to be a big girl and deal with this beast on my own. Being sick on campus can be a real pain in the butt as I have found out. For one thing if you are deathly ill and are having trouble leaving your bed you better hope you have a caring roommate otherwise you will starve to death. It was a miracle to wake up yesterday and see that my sweet roomie had brought me some yogurt and fruit for breakfast. It really makes you appreciate the person you live with ten fold. Another issue that may arise is getting an appointment with health services. It seems like the moment you get sick so does the rest of the population of students at Union. I called to make an appointment this morning and the only opening they had was for 11 am, right when I was supposed to be getting to work. When I asked if they had another appointment open, they told me I would have to make one for tomorrow or possibly the next day if they didn't have any openings. What is a sick girl to do?! I took the 11 am.
Illness can get even trickier when you realize that the nurses at the health clinic are prescribing you with medicine that you can get at the Reamer Campus Center without going through the hassle of scheduling an appointment and waiting around for a half hour just to be told that you have a common cold and need Mucinex. Sheer annoyance. Skipped classes are also negative outcomes of having some sort of sickness. One class missed isn't a huge deal, but excessive absences can lead to bigger problems. It is imperative that you email all the teachers who's classes you have missed in order to excuse your absence and see if there was anything truly important you missed in class. Some teachers require that you have a note for a missed class which is tricky because health services doesn't give out notes which I found out today : (
If you are really sick, don't go to class and risk contaminating the Universe, but if you have just a little cold, try to make it as a skipped class is a couple hundred dollars out the window. Who knows how many hundreds I've lost due to illness this year.
If you are really, really sick (aka an emergency) and can't get an appointment with health services skip it altogether and call Ellis Hospital or Campus Safety for help. They tell you this when you call to make an appointment at the health clinic, but I thought I'd reiterate it here. If you live close to home, don't feel bad ducking out for the weekend in order to get some much needed TLC from Mom and Dad. Sometimes that is all you really need in order to get better quickly. I know that has always helped me.