Sick Daze: The Chronicles of a Quarantined Germ-Person
Being out from school for a few days with an illness may seem like a vacation of sorts, but the isolation life is anything but that. If anyone’s been wondering what we’ve been up to, I’ve put a timeline together to shed some light on the subject (even though I haven’t felt sunlight in 72 hours):
Day 1. You wake up to the bell for second hour, and you’ve already forgotten what class you’re supposed to be in. You’re a new “man,” and you have new priorities now. You put on your slippers to keep from germing up the floor as you walk down two flights of stairs to your isolated bathroom to brush your teeth. Leaving your room feels like a sin, even with a disinfecting wipe covering both hands. You use two more wipes to clean the sink when you’re done. Beth comes by and asks if she can grab you anything. You request popsicles, and now you realize how you got a disease which usually attacks only children. You nap on and off till a supper tray shows up. Someone tells you Daniel Masker is sick now too. You fall asleep again, wondering how the world could be so cruel.
Day 2. The next day you’re anxious to gain some knowledge, but you can’t leave your cage until you’re “symptom-free.” The contents of your locker are stacked up in a mountain on your desk, and Gmail is your only means of academic communication. “Even if everyone at school thinks I’m gross and contagious, at least I’ll have my faculty pals,” you think to reassure yourself. You learn to ignore all the bells because they don’t mean anything anymore. Someone drops off brownies from Josie Naumann. Your appetite is nonexistent, but you try one to be polite. You proceed to eat three. You watch a full Broadway musical on Youtube, knowing full well that your data plan isn’t equipped for this. Your temp is 103.5, so you drift off making FM radio jingles out of the number.
Day 3. You eat another two brownies for breakfast. Your life is a blur of sleeping and drinking too much—yet somehow not enough—water. You find out two more girls are sick, and you feel personally responsible. You realize nobody's ever going to want to get close to you again, and you begin to seriously consider moving to Europe. You hang out with your quarantined friend Rose, even though you’re both getting too clingy. (But then again, you were clingy to start with. That’s how you got the disease in the first place.) She reads Brit Lit aloud because you forgot your book and you can’t touch hers. You relate to Grendel on a personal level. A text from your family comes in saying you owe them 30 bucks in data overages. You swallow the news like a champion. It dawns on you how long it’s been since you’ve talked to a male, and you don’t know if this is good or bad. Some freshmen could have dated and broken up by now, and you wouldn’t have a clue.
Day 4. You have no spots, so they’re going to let you go back to school today. You feel bad leaving Rose behind, but you give her your extra popsicles and remind her that at least she doesn’t have meningitis. You’re eager to have a backpack on your shoulder, but you don’t feel prepared to step back into the real world. You have two chemistry labs to make up, you haven’t practiced piano in a week, and your social skills have deteriorated at a rapid rate. But you have no choice, so you hose down all your possessions with Lysol and start fresh.