I started to feel a bit of a tickle in my throat on Wednesday evening, but I didn’t think much of it. I opted for some lemon ginger tea instead of chai and thought that would be the end of it. I should have known better. I have this bad habit of going full force with everything and forgetting to give myself rest. I will have such busy days that I will forget to eat and I won’t go to sleep until around 1 or 2 in the morning. My body hates it. I get stressed, I stop caring for my body and my body shuts down. Usually resulting in either a cold or a migraine. This week I got both.
Thursday morning I woke up feeling like death. I still wanted to go to class though. I was worried about my attendance and didn’t want my professors to think I wasn't taking the class seriously during the most important time of the semester. I tried to get ready but every time I moved my head pounded and my eyes began to water. I decided I had to let them know I wouldn’t be coming to class. I felt so bad in fact I sent them all the same email. Normally I try to send each professor an individual email but I couldn’t even look at my phone screen. I sent off the email and drifted into a sweaty and fitful sleep. I spent the whole day in bed drinking tea and resting hoping that I would feel well enough to go to class on Friday.
Friday morning came and I felt a lot better in the morning, but after being awake for only an hour I started to feel bad again. I called into work and class. I talked on the facetime with my best friend until physically I felt I could not talk anymore and also had lost my voice. My job is at a call center so I decided I wouldn’t go to work Saturday either because I didn’t want to strain my voice with calls all day. I made the mistake of staying up late on Friday night and I woke up Saturday feeling like I had been crushed by a boulder. I was sure that I had COVID but I did 3 at-home tests and they all came back negative. I felt guilty for laying in bed all day, but finally, I decided it was what my body needed. I decided I couldn’t feel guilty for not doing work and the stress of feeling guilty wasn’t going to make me feel better anytime soon because it was this stress that threw my body off in the first place.
COVID has both given us the space to be cautious about going to class when sick but also given us the expectation that we can go to class if the reason we’re not going doesn’t pertain to COVID. We now go online instead of a snow day, when you’re feeling ill but it’s not contagious your professor may tell you that it’s still fine to come to class and it is expected. I decided to listen to my body this weekend because she was tired. I took a full 4 days of rest in the midst of final’s season being upon us, but I’m glad I did because now I have the energy to pull through to finals and my graduation.