Ah, college. A wonderland of thousands of sleep-deprived sexually active students with possibly sub-par hygiene. As a result of the close quarters we all experience, when one person gets sick, the rest of us start dropping like flies. As we make our decline, we go through at least these six stages before accepting our sickness and hoping we can miraculously recover and not contract another plague for a while.

1. Denial

We get the dreaded email. "It won't happen to me," we all think, as we pretend not to care about the outbreak of whatever nasty disease is rapidly making its way across campus. We think to ourselves, "I'll just keep washing my hands! I have good habits!" Little do we know, the plague is right around the corner waiting to pounce on us.

2. Anger

Our best friend, roommate, or guy we're hooking up with gets sick. "Okay," we think, "this might be a problem." We buy ourselves a Purell travel pack to keep in our backpacks and try our best to avoid our 'infected' loved ones. We're there for them in spirit, wishing them well, but keeping a cool five feet away from them at all times. Dammit, Meredith, why did you have to get sick?! If only your immune system was tougher, like mine. Ha. Ha. Ha.

3. Bargaining

We start to feel a tickle in our throat. Maybe the occasional sniffle or a stuffy head when we wake up in the morning. We begin to pray to the higher powers. We beg them to let us off easy.

"I'll do my homework. I'll go to bed early. I swear I won't go out on Thursday. Please God, cure me before it's too late."

Our friends, the fallen soldiers, are beginning to multiply, and the only rational way we can cope is to hope the big man in the sky will save us.

4. Depression

It doesn't work, and we descend into the sad, lonely cesspit of illness. We call our moms and cry about how we've never felt more like death. We struggle to make it to classes, and just want to nap all day and watch marathon re-runs of Friends. Life must go on, though, and we struggle through.

5. Acceptance

We realize after a few days of feeling like a walking corpse that we HAVE TO go to the university clinic. This is the acceptance phase.

"Fine. I'm sick. I'm really sick..." We mutter on our way to the only place that makes you wait 2 hours for a Benadryl and a pat on the back. We never thought it would come to this, but it has, and all we want at this point is to feel better.

6. Recovery

We finally, somehow, stop sniffling and coughing, stop having that 101 fever, and stop alternating NyQuil and DayQuil to attempt to continue being a functioning human being during midterm week. Eventually, we can breathe again, WE CAN HEAR AGAIN!! Wow, it has never felt this good! We look back on our sickness and laugh, thinking about how our immune system will DEFINITELY be able to handle the next time better.

"Here's to never getting sick again!!" We think...or at least a healthy next few weeks.