Crippling aches, high fevers, and hacking coughs have been sweeping across the Redwood campus. Normally, I look at the “Flu Season” with a demigod-like detachment, confident that I won’t get sick.
Yet, unlike most demigods, I woke up on Monday, Jan. 25, feeling like I had been hit with a freight train of congestion and heat. I had the flu. Later that day, I also found out that I had pneumonia for the fourth time in my life.
As I lay in my bed, did I worry about becoming one of the 3,000 to 49,000 people who die from seasonal influenza each year? Was the fact that all but nine states had been declared as having “widespread” flu infections keeping me up?
No. I was wide-eyed at the thought of my Advanced Algebra homework being sub par.
The stress of school most likely takes years off of many high school students lives, and yet many feel pressured to stay at school regardless of health. It’s not hard to imagine why.
When I returned to school on the 27th, I felt like it was my fault that I had missed lessons. My teachers were aggravated, to put it lightly, that I was not up-to-date with all class information even though I had finished the required assignments on top of having influenza and pneumonia.
I can understand the lack of sympathy for the irresponsible student who is only visible on the day after tests and turns in minimal work, but I had two diseases attacking my body.
What was I supposed to do?
As my brain, and more slowly my body, ramp up to the speed of our competitive environment, I cannot help but feel a bit outraged at some of Redwood’s mixed messages about being sick.
On one hand, you have teachers who appear sympathetic and tell you that it is no good for you to remain in school while you are sick, but then it is an incredible struggle to regain footing once you are well.
The lack of support from teachers, counselors, and nurses causes many students with actual ailments to become more sick. If you’re sick, go home, Email your teachers, and get some rest.
Your high school career should not be defined about how much you spent catching up because you were sick. Unfortunately student health is not the first priority of the school, until that happens, we shall remain forever in the flu season.
