if you won’t get better, cry about it

I’m up at 7 AM writing this post because I’m sick and can’t sleep. E. thinks I get sick a lot as an adult because I wasn’t exposed to enough illnesses as a child, and never developed a strong immune system. But that’s not true. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been getting sick more often than the average kid. My mom used to call me “bad news bear” just because I was forever being a sick bear. I still have no idea where that reference comes from (a child’s story? A cartoon on TV?), but it seemed to be obvious to my mother so I never asked for fear of appearing stupid.

I didn’t just get trifling little colds all the time either. I wasn’t like Millhouse, who sounds like he just has a permanent nasal congestion issue going on up there. I never had “sinuses”, something only adults seemed to complain about. When I got sick, I was full-blown sick. Like the 103-degree fever sick, bed-ridden for days sick, can’t sleep because of the coughing that racks your body sick. My parents would move me to the guest bedroom, so I could sleep better in the queen-sized bed. This was kind of a joke because really over the years I had taken over the guest bedroom as my own room since I was sick half the time. The bottom dresser drawers there were always filled with my clothes as I was too lazy to move them back and forth.

The ‘rents didn’t believe in medicine, so it wasn’t until my freshman year in college that I knew about the wonders of Dayquil and Sudafed. I mean, I knew they existed from all the commercials on TV, but my parents said those kinds of medicines were dangerous. (“Those” being anything over-the-counter…luckily they did believe in antibiotics.) “Those medicines only treat symptoms, not help you get better,” Mom used to say. “Too much medicine not good for you.” If my fever was way off the charts, I got a Tylenol but that was it. (Always Tylenol, never ibuprofen–they think aspirin is dangerous too. Maybe only because I was young, but I can’t recall seeing my parents taking one either.) My freshman roommate grew up under the exact opposite environment. Her mother is a bit of a pill-happy nurse, so Nina had EVERYTHING in her drawer of goodies–allergies, sinuses, rashes, coughs, nasal congestion, coughs aaaand nasal congestion–she had it all. I still remember the look of incredulity on her face when I told her “I don’t take medicine” the first time I was sick in college. Now I have my own goodie drawer, stocked with tried-and-true favorites. Nina would be proud.

I have contracted strep throat on three separate occasions since I came to college. Strep is one of my favorite diseases, as I can get it again and again and again, just from different strains. I’ve even endured this weird chronic strain where I violently coughed for like two months, but my throat wouldn’t hurt. In general, I don’t mind strep because it can be solved with antibiotics and it’s fairly easy for me to self-diagnose since I’ve had it so much, kind of like UTIs.

This is, however, not what MIT Medical thinks. MIT Medical does not give antibiotics for strep throat. Yes, they will test you for strep and even if it comes back positive, they will tell you to suck it up and wait it out. They have a policy for not treating strep with antibiotics unless it absolutely won’t go away on its own.

I hate MIT Medical.

But, it did give me one of my most memorable nights here at MIT. I managed to get strep second semester of my freshman year, in early February. Probably one of the worst cases of strep I’d had in a while. I was on an all-liquid diet for a week because solid food hurt too much to swallow, and the strep still wouldn’t go away. The worst part was, I was dating W. at the time, and PBE had their big formal of the year coming up on Friday. Fancy food, a pretty hotel ballroom, and swing dancing classes after dinner, what could be better? (Hey, I was a freshman, fraternity formals were huge. Strange how things that mattered in the past are so silly now.) Thursday night, I still wasn’t showing signs of improvement, and W. was resigned to attend by himself. So what did I do? I cried. I cried and cried and cried. I walked out of my room to throw away a giant wad of phlegm-soaked tissues, ran into Y., and burst into tears.

“IcantgototheformalandW.hastogoallbyhimselfbecauseI’mstillsickandIhavean18.03psetduetomorrowthatIhaven’tstartedandI’mstillsickand
Ican’tdothepset! WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!” I was a blubbering load of pathetic. Y. had never seen me cry before, so he just shuffled his feet awkwardly and replied, “That sucks.” He would learn to hug me when I cried in the years to come, but Thursday night, that’s all he had. So I kept crying. I called my boyfriend, told him I couldn’t go to the formal, and cried some more. And then a miracle happened. Well, not exactly a miracle. W. came to my dorm, armed with a turkey sub from LaVerde’s with my favorite toppings (tomatoes, pickles, and mustard), yogurt, and water. He made it a rule to NEVER come near me during illness since he was so paranoid about getting sick himself, so this was something of a sacrifice. I ate some of the sandwich, even if it hurt. And Y. entered my room, 18.03 pset in hand. I remember it like it was yesterday, which is really cliche, but I do. W. and I sat cross-legged on my bed and Y. perched on the ground against my desk, and they helped me finish the pset. Thinking back, I can appreciate how smart W. is, because I’m a senior now like he was then, and I can’t remember shit about differential equations. As we worked, Y. bitched about this girl on our hall who stole his Chinese food and I laughed because I hated her too, and Nina joined in, and I was glad we all hated the same people.

Let me say, without exaggeration, that this is one of the happiest moments of my life.

And then, a miracle happened. For real. Friday morning, I was better. Not just a little better, but practically reborn. My throat was only barely sore, and I felt fantastic. I don’t recall the formal too well; I know I had fun. We chalked up the miracle to my excessive crying, which must have cleared out my system or something, but secretly, I knew it wasn’t that.

So now, whenever I’m sick, I think of that night and it makes me smile. And even though W. and I broke up, and Y. doesn’t take the same classes as me anymore, and Nina lives across the river…I feel lucky.