My father has always been a great giver of advice, and frankly he ends up being right most of the time. I don’t know how he does it, but I can only hope to be half the father he has been to me. Well, once again, he was right. Over Christmas break I was home with my two sisters and my dad frequently told me to go get my flu shot. I knew I needed to because I didn’t last year and actually got the flu, so I didn’t want to put myself in those shoes again. Multiple times a week he would walk up to me and ask if I had gotten my flu shot and then tell me how easy it is to do so, but why would I listen to him? If I listened to him all the time I wouldn’t make mistakes to learn lessons from. So I don’t get my flu shot, go back to school and pow, the flu attacked. I felt sicker than sick, and hated myself for it. Friday was the beginning of it, and it was the last night of rush. You get the feeling mid-day and just know what’s coming. This was a big weekend that was supposed to be a lot of fun for a large portion of campus, rush was over and bid day was here. It’s one of the best days of the year. I mean, it’s pretty much a holiday. I woke up that morning at 6:30 with the mindset and excitement level to have a day full of amazing memories, but my body disagreed. My bones were sore, my joints were aching, I was freezing and shivering while sweating profusely at the same time, but I was set on having a good day. So festivities began early, and my body decided to start to tell me how much it hated me. The pain was awful, but I didn’t want to miss anything from this outrageously fun celebration. By 1:00 in the afternoon, I threw in the towel. I had been going around all day trying to have fun, but my health just wouldn’t allow it. I went back to my room, got in bed, and proceeded to stay there for the next 48 hours.
During this period, there was no such thing as happiness. I was in bed for the whole weekend, watching snap stories and Facebook posts about how much fun everyone was having. Worst FOMO of my life. All I wanted to do was go outside and run around celebrating with the rest of Greek Life, but instead I was laying in my bed, hot, cold, sweating, aching, hurting, and miserable. I couldn’t eat or drink anything because it would come right back up, so I had no energy either. I had a nice long Netflix marathon of random movies I thought I wanted to see, and didn’t enjoy a single second of it.
The week rolled in and I was still sick, and my lovely girlfriend who took care of me this whole time was also now sick, so classes weren’t going to happen. I couldn’t even eat a cracker and hold down a sip of water, how was I going to sit through a Calculus 3 class? Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday went by, and I started to get back on my feet. By now I had missed 3 Calc 3 classes and knew I was way behind. Calc 3 isn’t a class you want to fall behind in, because catching up alone feels like your’e running a horse race on foot. Can you figure out what the equation for the 3-D graph of a hyperboloid of two sheets is by yourself? Neither can I. I’ve got multiple homework assignments to make up and no notes to reference. Looks like I’ve got a lot of work to do.
So now I’ve missed one of the best weekends of the year, and have a towering stack of Calculus 3 homework waiting for me to tackle. All because I got the flu and was sick for a couple days. But back to the fantastic man that I call my father, he was right yet again. If I had just listened to him and gone to get my flu shot I would have had an awesome weekend of fun rather than lay in bed miserable, and I wouldn’t have a ton of hard make up work to do. Getting a flu shot is a combined half hour of total work that includes making a phone call and driving to let someone stick a needle in my arm, but I chose not to listen and was properly rewarded for doing so. Bottom line here, always listen to Dad.
The inner-workings of my mind 