This past weekend, I had the pleasure (and discomfort) of being sick. Not exactly how I wanted to finish up my second week of college. And you know when one person gets sick in college, we all get sick.

Having returned to my hometown the summer after my first year in college, I had grown used to the comfort of having my house to go back to the minute I felt queasy or ill. Especially with the way my hometown is set up, as most everything is walking distance (since there was hardly anything to do in the town to begin with), getting to somewhere I can rest when I need to was easy.

Unfortunately, college is not nearly as homey and familiar. So the second I felt that sore feeling in the back of my throat when I woke up a couple of days I ago, my mind immediately went to a dreaded “Oh, no”.

I’ve found that the worst difference between being sick in high school and being sick in college is the stark contrast in convenience. While my first day of officially being sick was manageable, my second day was absolutely awful and I was a complete mess. I felt myself growing feverish and lightheaded during a math class and it got so bad that I nearly fainted.

During that horrible moment, I was reminded of a time in high school during my psychology class when I was in a similar condition (feverish and feeling faint). Only back then, all I had to do was go up to the teacher and ask to go to the nurse’s office, which was less than 5 minutes away from the classroom. In college, you don’t ask the professor to leave, and there is no nurse’s office within a convenient distance. In addition, I couldn’t even leave the class if I wanted to because I had a quiz to complete at the end of class. Had this been in high school, I probably could have gotten away with a makeup by going to the nurse’s office. Now, I have to suck it up because I am not allowed an excuse for missing a quiz or a test over sickness.

My house in my hometown was well within walking distance from my school (if my parents didn’t pick me up in their car). Here, I have to walk from my class to the bus stop-or otherwise walk the whole way back to my apartment if it was closer from my last class, and then drag myself up three flights of stairs before I get to my room with my bed and medicine. And of course, I don’t feel well enough to do that so I just collapse on a couch on the first floor. No bed, no medicine, no parents to take care of me while I take a day off from school. College forced me to realize my greater need to have a sense of independence.

Luckily, I found that I had more friends to fall back on than I did in high school because of this increased independence. Those who did have apartments on the first floor, those who let me collapse on their bed for hours, and those who brought me chicken soup when I found that I couldn’t stomach anything else.

So remember to value your health while you’re still growing, and just the same value the friends who are willing to help you, even in the smallest ways they can!