BY DARIAN SABLON
It’s a nightmare being sick.
Your body is constantly tired and any energy for productivity is completely gone; the most you ever want to do is sleep for hours in the comfort of your bed.
Yet, despite you not wanting to, school calls and if you want to pick up your grades in time for the end of the quarter, the bed has to wait. So much like your fellow classmates, you have to get up early and go to school.
Going to school when sick is one of the worst things any ill person can do. Dr. Eric J. Olsen, part of the non-profit Mayo Clinic, sees the lack of sleep, due to either work or school, as one of the ways that illness can often be prolonged.Additionally, by going to a high-density place, there’s a high probability that you will spread the illness to other people.
Imagine it like this: despite our best efforts, using tissues or hand sanitizer, pathogens (or germs) are often on our hands and parts of our face. So when we touch things, such as door handles or sharpeners, we leave a piece of the disease behind. Then when another person comes along, they can unknowingly pick up the germs left on these objects and get affected. Afterward, they also touch other things and leave a piece of those germs behind and so on.
In a blink of an eye, what started with one person can spread to a huge group. So to best prevent such a thing from happening, if you’re sick, you stay at home and try to get some rest -which Dr. David Rapoport, director at the New York University School of Medicine says is a great way to get better.
Now, I don’t want to spread the idea that we should treat people who have a cold like they have the bubonic plague; it’s nothing so serious that people should be quarantined. That’s taking things too far and could result in people becoming scared at the thought of being ostracized by their friends who don’t want to catch a cold.
However, if someone is sick, we need to emphasize that they should stay home. Some people will complain that staying home will result in them getting left behind on an important lesson plan or missing a test or assignment.
The reality is that all of those things can wait. Most teachers are very understanding when it comes to sickness and recovering has more worth than a grade that can be made up at a later time.
So if you’re sick, stay home, relax and drink some chicken soup because, at the end of the day, it benefits not only you but also those who are around you.
