Sick like a Dog (5C)
This post is only fitting: I’m writing this with a runny nose, sore throat, and my bed is littered with Kleenex boxes and comfort foods (Cheetos). It makes for a very miserable Matt, especially considering that I made myself go to class today and every food and drink I force down tastes like my icky throat. It’s the second time I’ve gotten sick this school year already and that’s nowhere near my record.
I have the worst immune system known to man.
I do declare, I am sick.
Admittedly, I don’t take care of myself as well as I should be: my sleeping patterns are just okay, but I still somehow sleep hours longer than almost all of my friends; I eat out on campus because it’s convenient and because I’m a dreadful cook; I have no sort of vitamin or exercise regimen aside from eating a handful of Vitamin C chewables when I feel sick out paranoia or aside from going to the gym once a month. All things considered, I sound like a typical university student.
Since my days in elementary school I was always one of the kids who got sick the most. You’d think my body would be completely immune to germs and common colds, but no; in fact, when I was a kid, my doctor told me I was a carrier of strep throat, so that was awesome. My parents sent me to school even if I was feet away from Death’s doorstep – I went to school with pneumonia for two weeks before they decided I wasn’t faking a sickness to get out of class.
Things never changed when I got to university. Without fail, for the past four years in a row, I get horribly sick the first week in September, and the pattern repeats itself in January whenever I move back, no doubt because my immune system is like, oh my god, so many new germs everywhere, I surrender.
My bones are made of glass.
Not only do I fall victim to sickness: I have broken a total of six bones in my body. Why? Because I’m a big guy, so when I fall, I fall hard.
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Me and my old friend the boot cast.
Fracture in my right wrist: ah, my first. It was Bring Your Friend to Camp Day so I was the friend who was brought to camp. Then came time for the water slide, which was really a sheet of plastic on a steep hill that counselors poured soap onto. Crash, fall, break.
- Broken finger: my sister pulled at my finger to get ahead of me when we were racing.
- Sprained ankle, but I totally broke it: Survivor was starting so I ran through my kitchen and wiped out on a massive puddle by the door. I really like Survivor, okay?
- Fracture in my left wrist: drove my bike right off a boardwalk, fell into a swamp, and in the mix I broke my wrist. This was three hours into my weekend camping trip. I have not been bike riding since.
- (are you eating? No? Good) Fractured kneecap: fell forward on the stairs and my knee caught the stair’s edge. Most excruciating pain of my life. I do not recommend breaking your patella.
- Broken foot: tripped on a box and landed directly on the side of my foot causing a spiral break. It also might have happened because I was really excited to hear the song ‘212’ by Azealia Banks, but let’s go with the box. This happened a week before I went to Florida, so I limped in a boot cast in pain around Disney and Universal Studios.
I’m a hypochondriac, and Google says I’m going to die.
Given my checkered history with health issues, I’ve let myself become something of a hypochondriac – nothing progressively severe, but I needlessly fret over my health.
Where did you get your medical license, Google?
After I got my wisdom teeth taken out, and the bleeding had not yet subsided and the blood clots were dislodging, Google told me that I was going to get dry sockets and be in severe pain. When my foot was bruising badly after my trip over the box or ‘212,’ Google told me that I would need surgery and I would be facing pain for the rest of my life. I was convinced I was going to die two summers ago when my bronchitis got worse before it got better, and that’s because Google told me so. Google is the worst when you’re sick.
Instinctively, the people around me warn me not to go on the Internet to look up my symptom because I psyche myself out and end up scared with every passing minute that I don’t get better. It’s because of my paranoid nature that I get scared over health issues, and it’s my superstitious nature that has me knocking on my wooden bedside table constantly as I’ve been writing this.
Confessions of a Paranoid Neurotic 
I came to be polite. I stayed for the highlighting.