What College Taught Me: Pizza, Scooters, and Seasonal Depression

Appendicitis or Gas?

Yes, I realize that this is a very odd name for a chapter, but I promise it will all make sense. This story starts like many of my other stories do. It was a dark, rainy day in Belgium and I did not want to get up for school. This was nothing unusual. My parents were always yelling at me to get my ass outta bed, which usually ended in me being a very grumpy, and a very late, gal' in the morning. I realized I wasn't a morning person at a very young age, and that's why all of my classes in college start no earlier than 9 AM. Trust me on this one, avoid night classes as well. Nobody wants to sit in class until 9:45 PM.

Anyways, I was in the middle of my senior year, I was losing patience, I was exhausted all the time, but, you see what made this day especially awful, is that when I woke up I felt really sick. You all know what I'm talking about. Sweating, shivering, can barely open my eyes, sick. I had felt pretty crappy a couple of days leading up to this, but that morning, I felt like death. I sat in bed until the last possible moment, listening to the rain hit my window, thinking about how much I didn't want to go to classes. Eventually, I rolled out of bed, reluctantly shoved my sweatpants on, and asked my mom if I could stay home for the day. My mom was my homie my senior year, she let me take so many days off. I can't stress this enough- I. Did. Not. Want. To. Be. In. School. But, on this particular day, my momma said I was gonna have to tough it out because I had missed too much school that month. Which sucked, but I wasn't about to fight her cause I wanted to take off days in the future. 

As we're leaving our house I asked once more- who are we kidding- I practically begged to stay home. But it seemed my mom was going to hang tough on her decision. I sat through maybe an hour of school before my teacher made me go to the nurse. Away I went, walking down the pristine halls of my school, wondering why my body had decided to rebel against itself. I walked by the principal's office, past a couple of my friends' classrooms, and the bathrooms until I was finally at the door of the nurse's door which was decorated with all sorts of, "Drink water" and "Don't smoke wacky-tabaccy" posters. The nurse at our school was very unusual. She seemed too young to be there, but too old at the same time. Plus, she was friends with my mom- which always made our meeting a tad bit uncomfortable. I took a seat on the examination table and laid down. The sanitary paper crinkled underneath me, and I started to answer her questions. Yes, I'm sick. No, I don't know why I'm sick, that's why I'm sitting here in your cold ass room instead of in class. No, there's no chance I'm pregnant. Yeah, my stomach hurts. The nurse started pressing on parts of my stomach, her fingers were too cold until I flinched in pain. "Does that hurt?" She murmured. Her voice was high-pitched, squeaky, and annoyed the crap out of me. I wanted to roll my eyes at her question. If you press on something and I flinch, then the consensus is that it probably hurts. She continued to press my stomach, then left the room. She walked into her office, I could hear her mumbling on the phone, then she came back into the room with that fake smile, and her god awful voice. 

"Okay, Hannah. So, I just called your parents, it seems that both of them are stuck at work. It looks like you have appendicitis, and you're going to have to go to the E.R." 

Nonchalant, like it's no big deal. She dropped that bomb on me, and I start to freak. I watch a lot of Grey's Anatomy, and let me tell you, things weren't looking good.

So, my emergency contact is called, her name is Lara. Lara came to pick me up, and we dashed to the emergency room. At that point, I'm convinced my appendix is going to burst and I'm just gonna straight up die. PLUS to make things worse, we lived in a French-speaking country, and I didn't know medical terms in French. It was a hellish experience, I was poked and prodded by needles, I had to pee in a cup (even though I kept telling them there was no way I was pregnant), I had an abdominal ultrasound, and an x-ray. After my fourth hour in the hospital, a scrawny looking doctor came into my room. He introduced himself in broken English, and with a slightly uneasy look on his face informs me that I don't have appendicitis. 

"You have, uhm, I don't know how to say, but, many farts in your stomach."

I had severe indigestion. It was humiliating. All I had to do was take a big ole' shit. Now at this point, I'm sure you're wondering why the hell you're reading this book. Well, lemme show you how I relate this to college.

It is not as bad as it seems. That's the moral of this story. The world may be crashing down around you, your parents left you at college, your friends are scattered across the country and possibly even the globe, your homework is piling up, and that kid in you 8 AM class makes you want to choke on a spoon, but I promise you, you can do it. No matter how bad it gets, and you may feel like your appendix is about to blow, but it's probably a lot better situation than you think. And I'm going to give you a little piece of advice that I wish someone would have given to me before I started college (or maybe they did, and I just didn't listen), seek help. If you are struggling in your classes- go to your professors or advisor. If you feel upset- go to see a campus counselor. If you need to talk- call your best friends, or your momma, or talk to that dog in the park! Tell them that you love them, and you miss them! They're probably missing you too.

Lesson Two: Look after yourself, even when you feel like you don't deserve it. Also, maybe take a shit before rushing to the emergency room.