There is no good time to be sick at school. Absolutely none. It's never OK. But it happens.

When it does happen, what exactly are you supposed to do about it? Making up lectures is hard because you have to get a vague summary from a friend or set up a meeting with a TA. Then there's an exam coming up, and what about that other essay?

I bet it's just allergies.

Might as well go to class anyway. It'll be fine, right? You just have to push through.

Nope — wasn't just allergies. Oh my god no, this is definitely not allergies. Allergies don't randomly make everything hurt, and why won't your nose just stop doing that nose thing, and can this lecturer please hurry up so you can run to the nearest restroom for paper towels?

In high school, I always complained about my classrooms not having tissues all the time, but at least they had tissues in the first place. You could run next door and get one if it was really bad. That might be the only thing I miss about high school. There were reliable tissues.

Skipping the rest of class is the only viable option.

Friends come back and find you like this. There's still some small bit of hope that maybe it's just a quick thing, maybe it'll go away and maybe most of your essay makes enough sense that it'll count as a rough draft for the deadline. If your friends are worth keeping, then if they find you in this state, they'll send you straight to take a nap. You know you wanted one anyway.

With enough sleep, you can definitely destroy the entire sick, whatever it is. Even if you're stress-dreaming of delayed homework assignments, you ought to try to enjoy that nap anyway. Send the last few stressful emails to people in charge about why you'll be late. When you wake up, you'll feel good as new!

Right?

Wrong.

Go back to sleep.

Seriously. You need to get sleep in order to feel better at all. Hopefully you already emailed student services to get someone on your side about your late assignments. Even if you didn't, go back to sleep. You can deal with the academic issues later. Take care of yourself first!

Soon you'll get to a point where you can knock back a cup of hot tea and get back to work.

There's a lot to catch up on, but you can do it!

I've learned a lot about reaching out for help after being sick, to get extensions and redistribute my schedule into something that's actually manageable. It's possible, and it's incredibly helpful, and in the long run, everything will be OK.

And if you contaminated any of your friends, hopefully you can trade them some lecture notes when they're stuck in bed for a few days like you were. It's a circle of sick.

"May all of your colds hit during vacation." - Ancient college proverb