By Chelsea Tirrell, Staff Writer
You make me sick. Not in the sense of having an absolute disgust for you, but because you're hacking up a lung beside me in class. Let's do a little role reversal. How would you feel if I were sitting next to you with the croup, handling an object being passed around class, and then hand it over to you, expecting you to grab it and collect all of my germs? You would be utterly disgusted, unless you enjoy being sick. In which case, this article wouldn't pertain to you.
If you're sick to the point of not being able to keep your cough to a moderate/dull roar, you shouldn't be in class. If you're sneezing and spewing mucus at such a rate that a tissue does you no good, you shouldn't be in class. If you can't feel your throat or your head feels like it weighs sixty pounds on its own, you shouldn't be in class. Get the picture?
Being sick is not a joke. It's so easy to spread your germs and contaminate someone else who doesn't wish to be lying sick in bed all day or in many people's cases, attending class when you're almost positive you've got strep, swine flu or something much more severe. It seems like every day I read 20 more Facebook statuses that say, "I am so sick…FML!" As annoying as the repeated status changes may be, they aren't really to blame. It's the infected students attending class when they know they shouldn't be.
In all honesty, I respect the dedication. I myself hate missing class, because it seems like I'm missing a month's worth of work. But face it; you'd be better off spending the day in bed, leaving fellow classmates out of harm's way and recovering. The more you push yourself, the worse you're going to get. Your best bet is to email your professor, let them know you're ill, and request the notes you missed for that day. Most likely, they'll be more than happy to send the information to you as opposed to you attending class and infecting not only your pupils but also themselves. It's harder for professors to miss class than it is for you, so keep that in mind.
While it may be a great idea to stay in bed for a little while when you're sick, you also take the risk of infecting your roommate should you have an illness. Being in such close quarters allows easy transmittal of germs, and while they're being passed back and forth, no one is getting better. In this scenario, there really isn't much you can do aside from going home, if that's readily available. If that's not possible, an immediate heads up to your roomie to let them know that you're infected is always appreciated. Unless, as stated, they find an odd joy in feeling incapacitated for a few weeks.
It's also essential to get treatment. If you wait the illness out, it's bound to get worse. Take a trip to the Health and Wellness Center. I promise you, the nurses aren't that mean. You'd be helping not only yourself, but the people around you who cringe at the sound of your hacking.
Seriously, it's about time we all acknowledge our sicknesses. Quit posting it all over Facebook, and do something about it. We're doing no one any good by complaining or failing classes while attempting recovery publically. So, get on with your sick self and do what's best for the University. When you're alive and well again, let us all know by updating on Facebook.
(Ryan Broderick/The Chronicle)