University Health Gone Wrong

When I started college, I thought I could be all right physically. I’m currently writing this in Los Angeles, and the temperatures are mildly warm without being too hot to change much of my daily routine. There are also no storms, hurricanes, or even noticeable deforestation that change temperature so much like all the other places in the United States. I have a beach nearby for any kind of refresher. I bring my medical stuff that works for 90 percent of the time. And I got sick. What happened?

I got a common cold that was utterly different from the countless times I got it. When I got it, I coughed like five times during the day, with the worst of the times being at night and when I woke up. I didn’t get a runny nose until late, which wasn’t a huge issue. The cough was like a white mucus, which didn’t seem that crazy. I was so worried that I coughed like crazy to the point of contemplating skipping classes. I asked my parents if I could skip class just for that condition, and they refused. They honestly didn’t want me to skip class and thought many students with the same conditions attended class, too. The problem with that common cold was that it lasted for quite a while and took a whole month to solve it finally.

I started to become sick during the later parts of my quarter. My college uses a quarter system, with ten regular weeks a term and an extra week for finals. I’m not a massive fan of the quarter system because I’m a computer science major (Linguistics and computer science at the time of writing). Courses were often sequenced, severely limiting options for taking, making them similar to Let me tell you a story about it. 

I was taking a class called COM SCI 31, Introduction to Computer Science, and I was in bed. At the time, I was worried about one of my project submissions and my midterm, which was just a short time ago. I forgot this one thing from the project, which can be a massive problem down the line just to pass the class for the first time. Along with that, my midterm performance needed to be corrected. I forgot many of the little things that caused a significant problem in the code. I wasn’t particularly adept at paying attention to the details by myself, which, according to an eclectic professor, was the difference between life and death, and there were questions I’d never seen before. After the midterm, I talked about it with a group of friends who found it to be quite challenging. I didn’t pass the midterm without a generous credit on the extra credit, which sounded quite abnormal. I did fine on the project, but the stress disappeared. Besides rambling about the midterm and the project I just submitted, I went to class as usual. But in my mind, I was constantly thinking about the outcomes of failing this class. It wasn’t my first computer science class because I’ve taken another one and did alright. Sure, it could encourage me to work harder and study much more efficiently for future exams and future computer science projects, but it worried me. My work ethic stayed the same, but my time management was terrible. I couldn’t focus much on anything other than computer science. I wanted to remain ahead and finish everything as quickly as possible. I didn’t sleep enough, and my stress from trying to get a good grade in my computer science class didn’t help. 

So, I called my mother, who said I should go to the nearest urgent care, basically my university-affiliated medical center. There, I talked about my condition to the best of my memory, which can make a wrong impression of this doctor I’ve just met. This doctor requested two pieces of medicine, and I told my mother about it, which gave me a plan to solve this issue. I also started eating softer foods and soups, which were quite tricky to find at my university. Honestly, it could be my fault because finding these foods was challenging, and for me, having oil and dealing with fried food wouldn’t help alleviate my condition. Another part of the plan was for me to take more medicine and use rubs to relieve my condition sooner. That plan should help me throughout this quarter, and I should be physically well to get in shape and pass all the finals in my classes so far. 

The medicine my new doctor recommended to me was alright. They helped alleviate some of the cough, and I coughed less. Finally, the running nose became far less apparent, but something about me didn’t feel right. The coughs were still happening, and the frequency was just slightly. I didn’t know whether my mother was pleased when I said a bit. It seemed that the medicine wasn’t helping much. It was not something to bash myself on, but I wanted to test the medicine over a long time to ensure proper verification of whether it was helpful. I thought that using the medicine in 6 weeks would help me verify the effectiveness of the medicine. Right now, I’m unsure of the new medicine because all I have was that it wasn’t super effective, not something good for the doctors who interacted with me and my mother. 

Eventually, my mother suggested I go home, and I did. I told my mother about my medical visits, and she found some misinformation and requested that I take different forms of medicine. It didn’t take long before I had to return to Los Angeles to finish the quarter, and when it did, I went home for a short break. I did just fine.

At home, my parents cooked a weird pot for me to take, which they believed to be a medicine. This pot contained many leaves that they thought should alleviate my heavy cough. I covered myself in a blanket because it wasn’t safe to do it at the house. I hunched myself down and stirred the pot. When I first tried it, it was incredibly awkward due to the hunching and not knowing how to use it. I didn’t know what it meant to wait for the pot to stop boiling because I had no clue. It didn’t take too long because the pot was no longer warm. I ended up smelling the pot multiple times a day throughout the week, and from my parent’s perspective, my cough has declined a lot. I didn’t know and thought it was about the same. 

One day, I took down the Christmas lights outside the balcony because they were broken, and I took them down. They were a stretch to take down because they were above the balcony. Later that day, I experienced back pain just after some people moved in. It was bad enough that I could not stand up. Just before the thing, I was trying this portable massage machine and handed it to my mother because I couldn’t get it working. My mother tried it, and I guess I felt good. I’m very unsure because it didn’t make much of a difference. I had to lie down for the remainder of the party and eventually returned to my room. 

After that day, I returned to Los Angeles with some medications to start a new quarter. I was still sick, with the back pain and all that. I don't know why the conditions didn’t get better over time. I was mainly lying down and restrained myself from going to the gym. At some point, I was barely coughing, like only once during the morning or night, and at other points of the week, I was coughing like crazy, back to about four times a day. The coughs were the same as last time, basically white and healthy. I don’t like it, but I hope you get the idea. I called my mother throughout the week, and we agreed that I should go to the doctor for a checkup. 

After a brief checkup, the doctor found out that my condition was quite unusual due to believing my symptoms were happening at the core instead of the back (huh? Quite exciting idea). So, the doctor went to meet with a supervisor of some kind (I don’t know who the doctor brought, but it did) and found my story fascinating (again, I don’t know how my story is interesting. I thought that it’s a part of the uncanny valley of illness yet to experience). They found out that my condition was going at a regular pace and it would get better over time (they expected my condition to be free in like six weeks, and I must wait another two weeks). They recommended I use a heating pad. After the appointment, my mother asked about my appointment. After telling her the doctors recommended a heating pad, she bought one for me. Eventually, the heat pad became a staple part of my dorm life. The doctors were correct, and my condition has significantly improved, with no back pain and far less cough. 

The whole lesson is that you never know when you’re going to get sick, even in a notoriously fetishized environment. I wish I knew some Italian to analyze California because everyone drools for it accurately. But there’s no real idea when you’ll get sick. I cannot speak for different environments where you must wear a jacket year-round. And if you’re sick, you better take medical advice from doctors. Also, as a self-living person, there’s no one to care for, and I think it’s a benefit. Life will change, and honestly, I don’t regret facing it. All I can say from there is get ready to catch it and live it.