Your Sick Day Guide

By Lev Novak

It’s the end of a weird, tricky winter. Also, it’s the weekend. You might get hungover and sick, and, like me, you might be both.

That’s okay. We’re going to get through this.

1. Cut Non-Essential Operations

You’re not going to the gym, buddy.

Most sane people won’t try. To the wanna-be heroes out there: forget it. Life is is life, and things happen. You can plan a perfect day on paper, but forcing yourself through it while sick is only going to make things worse.

Be reasonable.

Non-essential operations depend on the degree of sickness. If you have a bad hangover, non-essential might be doing your work. If you have the flu, non-essential might be “putting on pants.” Whatever it is, you have to prioritize it.

2. Do What You Got To

Ask your room-mate to go to the store for some gatorade, some ginger ale and some plan bread. Offer them twenty bucks.

Twenty bucks!? Yeah, twenty bucks. They’ll probably do it for free as a favor, but the point is that money is a weird concept to some people. If you’d spend twenty dollars on a meal out, or on a taxi, shrug and accept that you got sick, and surviving in a non-miserable way is worth every penny.

Do what you gotta do, man. Pay the price and get what you need. Be good to yourself and take care of what you should.

3. Pair Fancy Cures With Solid Ones

I know everyone has their own fancy cures. People will tell you to eat burnt toast for a hangover, or a cold shower for a fever, or anything else that they swear works.

Maybe it does. If you have one or two fancy cures, I’m not here to judge (though the cold shower one sounds awful.) Instead, I’m going to tell you a simple recipe for feeling better: combine one “miracle cure” with good, simple advice.

Drink fluids, eat basic foods and then…well, try something. Maybe super spicy food clears your sinuses or something. Maybe it doesn’t. But if you make sure to do all the basic things, trying out all these new fancy cures is a lot less risky. As long as you don’t rely on it as your only or primary cure, you can rotate all the internet’s advice.

Might as well, right?

4. Call Home

There’s nothing wrong with complaining about being sick. It’s a time-honored tradition, and being fussed about and cared for can have a rewarding calm about it. But, in college or in the real world, you’re going to find that people don’t care. It’s a cold world, yo.

So call home.

Love, affection, and complaining can be an important outlet. Being sick makes a lot of people feel weak, childish, and whiny. Okay, maybe that’s just me. But if it’s you too, then indulge yourself. Kvetch. Moan.

They’ll have love, and advice that might be useful. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll send you a care package. And being cared for counts.

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