A few weeks ago, I woke up with what felt like a flaming golf ball in my throat. In my morning grogginess I figured one of two things had happened: either I had had an unfortunate nighttime accident at the driving range from hell or I was sick. I soon discovered that it was no golf ball but a gigantic tonsil — you had one job, immune system.

I felt like a million bucks — if those million bucks had been ripped apart, burned and then flushed down the toilet. It’s hard to say what’s worse, actually being sick or having to miss a ton of work because of your illness. It’s just never convenient. Nobody ever got struck with the sickness on a Wednesday after you’ve had exams for the week and all your homework is done.

Those germs are definitely looking through your calendar and conspiring to get you at the worst possible time.  If you want to come down with something, having a busy schedule is almost as much of a prerequisite as not washing your hands and letting people cough in your mouth.

Being sick on your own is awful.  Having a cold or a mild case of the flu when you’re a little kid is bearable, if not awesome.  You can miss school, because none of it actually matters until sixth grade.  It’s likely your folks are around to spoon-feed you mountains on mountains of ice cream while you watch SpongeBob in your underwear.  It strangely parallels the stereotypical college girl’s dream night in.

I remember in middle school, I left class because I felt really ill and all my friends had me cough on their pencils so they could get sick.  This only attests to the awesomeness of being out of school when you’re 12. But when you get sick in college, forget it.

Your dorm room becomes a crypt and you become the vampire. During my bout with tonsillitis, I didn’t see sunlight for days. When my roommate came in to check on me, I would not have been surprised if lightning flashed outside, that creepy organ riff played in the background and my bed rose into the air.

If there was any upside to my situation, it was living on South Campus. Had I been in a dorm where a bunch of plastered freshmen run around screaming all Tuesday night, I would have ended up doing something that might have gotten me expelled.

Catching that South Campus bus everyday is miserable, but doing it with a fever while you’re all spaced out on DayQuil is a terrifying experience.  Every bump feels like Mike Tyson is socking it to your stomach. Everyone else is all dressed up and preppy, probably on their way to Whitman, and you know you look — and probably smell like — a zombie. Taking the walk to Health Services half-clothed — you can’t decide if you’re freezing or on fire — half-shaven and half-awake isn’t good for your self-esteem.

If you ever manage to make it to Health Services, you will find yourself joined by the hordes of other sickly students. Then the nurses all say the same thing, “You’ve got to get some rest and stay hydrated.”

Now it’s not the fault of the Health Services nurses by any means, but a lot of the time there’s just nothing they can do. While I know plenty of people practice their hydration skills, finding time to sleep is a bit … harder … to … zzzz.

Zach Schweikert is a sophomore advertising major. He knows how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if that woodchuck could chuck wood, but it’s a secret. His column appears every Thursday in Pulp. He can be reached at zdschwei@syr.edu.

Published on November 6, 2014 at 12:01 am