Oh no Mono! How to Make Your Sickness Easier

So dear readers, I have mono. If you don’t know what that is, mononucleosis is often characterized by fever, sore throat, swollen lymph glands, headache, fatigue, muscle weakness, swollen tonsils, and night sweats. Sadly, over the past three weeks I have experienced all of those. Although I am starting to feel better, I am still mentally drained, and well, just exhausted. What’s worse is that this mono is mixing poorly with my mental health, meaning I have been more anxious and depressed than usual.

And so here is the thing- I need to sleep, and not “oh wow I need to sleep-in after last night” kind of sleep. No, I need at least twelve hours of sleep a day. “But Haley- what about school? What about work?” Well reader, as I mentioned in my last post, I have already talked to my Registrar and for the most part, everything is going okay. I may need some extensions next week, but hey that is not so bad. I also decided to late withdraw from a class due to my mono so I can lighten my course load. By the way, one late withdrawal on your transcript does not impact your GPA or your grad school applications in any way. Oh Haley and your school anxiety.

As for work, well I needed to take a break. For those of you who don’t know, I have two jobs plus an unpaid internship so it is quite likely that I got mono because my immune system was down from all the stress (typical Haley troubles). I figured: if I go into work, I am not going to do a good job anyways and I will probably just make everyone sick. So I swallowed up my prideful work ethic and sewed up my wallet so I could rest. Do I regret that? Not one bit. “But Haley, isn’t hibernating in your dorm room all day making you lonely?” Oh yes. This is the struggle with mono- while you can get mono only if you share saliva (aka sharing eating utensils or a drink with someone who is infected), the illness is so awful that you don’t want to risk the chance of giving it to your friend or family member. More to the point- I am also a stubbornly independent person. In the beginning, I would just stay in my room all day with no food because I didn’t want to text my friend to ask if she could go to the grocery store (yes, I know it makes no sense, but this is sick and stubborn Haley talking!). However when I finally relented my pride and let my friend get me some apple sauce, oatmeal, and bananas, not only was I feeling better because I was eating, but also because I was finally talking to someone. So when your friend is sick, please go and see them. Even if they refuse because they don’t want to see themselves as a burden, please insist because it made all the difference in the world for me. See you next week, Haley