So this semester...

Well this was an interesting semester…

This is my second semester here at Michigan, but my first “real” term as most people are calling it. It was perhaps crazier than the first. I found my friend groups shifting, friends that I thought I would always keep in contact with slowly disappeared from my life to the point where we never even text. I wonder whom I will actually keep in touch with after this year? Will all of my Alice Lloyd friends forget me and move on? Is there any actual consistency in college? Where do I even want to live after this year?

Was this me at the beginnings of my sickness? 

Being sick this semester added a whole other layer to one of the supposedly most complicated semesters in college. Having mono in college is probably one of the worst sicknesses you can get. Not only was I misdiagnosed for two months, but I struggled to explain to everyone why I was still always tired when I was supposed to be getting better.  People don’t talk about the depression you experience at one point during mono. My roommate would come in late at night and find me crying in a corner. When she would ask me what was wrong, a stream of random problems seemed to flow from my mouth. I was falling asleep in random places, sleeping almost 14 hours each day, but also trying to keep up with my social and academic life.

The worst thing is how people run for the hills when you tell them you have mono. Mono is transferred through saliva. So it can be contracted through sharing drinks, food, toothbrushes, and yes…kissing. However, doctors say that it is less contagious than the common cold. Clearly, it is not the easiest thing to catch. However, when my advisor recently asked me how the semester was going, I told her it wasn’t so great because I had mono for most of it. Her response:

“Get out, get out of my office right now! You shouldn’t be on campus right now! Withdraw from this semester!”

See what I mean?

There’s a lot of stigma attached to mono. When my mom found out I had it her immediate reaction was:

“Well who have you been kissing?”

People also seem to take two steps back when I inform them I have it. Even the nurses at UHS seemed afraid of me. I could go over all the facts about mono and explain that the worst of my illness passed when I thought I simply had a sinus infection, but I would encourage people to instead do some research on it, instead of making assumptions.

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I also can't work out for fear that my enlarged spleen my rupture at any moment. I'm consistently out of breath after doing the simplest of tasks. Getting to class across campus seems like even a strenuous activity. 

So basically mono sucked and complicated an already difficult semester. I’m not through yet, though. This didn’t deter me from staying at the University. I have some really great friends so far, friends I could see myself staying in contact with for the rest of my life. I still have no idea what I want to do in life, but hopefully that will come. Next semester, when I make up all of the work I missed in my classes and my mono subsides, the world and the university better prepare for the new and improved Liz!