Sick Day

I’ll never forget my junior winter of high school. I was involved in Varsity Swimming which had double practices, I had an amazing girlfriend, a heavy work load to look good for colleges, a couple term papers, and community service. And I was sick the entire time. With a temperature holding in the steady hundreds one would think that I would be seeking medical help and resting. However I continued to push away at my work load and continued to maintain my life the way I always did.

Most kids are probably now thinking, well why didn’t his parents call him out of school. Why didn’t he just cut class and get better? The answer lay in the fact that I went to a boarding school where I lived on campus so there was no easy way to call out of school. Even if there had been there was a trend at school of kids coming to school with all sorts of sicknesses. From the constant strain of mono to sinus infections and massively high temperatures, the culture we were in pushed us to exceed past the limits that we set for ourselves. Students were constantly coughing and struggling past headaches and nasal congestion to hear a lecture.

Once leaving for college I figured I’d left this behind. After all it surely was a rare thing that I could attribute to the competitiveness of my private high school. My idyllic dreams were quickly shattered when I realized it was simply worse in college. The general attitude among kids was that they were invincible and that they by no means needed to take care of themselves outside of their general hygene. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that infections and such run quickly through dorms and sports teams and most people didn’t want to deal with being held back from their daily agenda by their health. In the end it became apparent that something is just simply wrong.

Students should be constantly encouraged to take care of themselves. While sickness can be dealt with thanks to the plethora of drugs on the market (legal, over the counter drugs only of course) it’s a burden that generally drags someone and the people around them downward. So the question is raised if being sick is so bad for us why do we continue to press on? Is the culture we live in and the drive to succeed really that great that we can put off caring for ourselves to better our future achievements? Why can’t our future achievements take a week off while we get better so that we can more fully deal with the life we all need to live. If it’s not our culture that pushes students into this situation, is it the teachers or their peers who lead students to wanting to succeed and impress everyone which leads us to going to class sick, throwing up, or with raging fevers? Are these really things to have to deal with when trying to learn new material and succeeding in life? Personally I believe that on a whole students need to take care of themselves when their sick so that they can then better understand and comprehend the learning that they’re then required to take a part of in the classroom. This way we can learn things perfect the first time. Like the age old question goes, “If you’re not going to do it right, why do it?”

On a side note please excuse me from class today as I have a sinus infection that I caught from my roommate and I plan on aptly resting and sleeping it off today.