How I Stopped Getting Sick Every Week

I had a paper due in 30 minutes, a hard copy in class. I was finished with it and I was happy with how it had turned out. I put my laptop in my backpack, turned off the lights in my apartment and was heading out the door when it struck. The rumbles. The quivering and shaking in the plumbing that means things are about to get serious. Montezuma's revenge. The porcelain throne awaited. I had no choice. I answered its call. My paper was still due, so in between "waves" I opened up my laptop and emailed my professor, sending him a copy of the paper, as well as a less wordy explanation of my condition. The ironic part was that the paper discussed the workings of a sewage treatment plant.

When I moved to Indiana for graduate school, I was sick for about half of my first semester. It was miserable. Perhaps it was due to the added stress. Maybe it was because I had moved over 1000 miles and was in a new germ pool. Whatever it was, I hadn't been here two weeks when I got hit with my first cold. It lasted about a week. It opened the floodgates for about a dozen different colds, the flu, stomach flu, the squirts, body aches, and just feeling miserable.

I'm a pretty healthy person. I exercise a few times each week, I don't eat out, and I don't smoke, drink, or use any drugs. I was sick and tired of being sick (and tired, but being tired just comes with being an adult I've decided). I knew something needed to change, so I tried a few different things. This semester I've gotten sick once, and I think that was because of something I ate. In hindsight, I think I can figure out what worked, and how I stopped getting sick.

I tried eating better
I really did try, and now we eat a few more vegetables. At least, we have vegetables in our fridge and like a ceremonial ritual, every few weeks they become dead and we throw them away and get another bunch. This didn't really change a lot from my first semester.

I tried to exercise more
Like the vegetables, the first semester I'd give myself a C in this category, and it improved to about a C+. Nothing to write home about, but there was a little bit of improvement.

Sleep more
Yeah right. Maybe once I graduate.

Stress less
ha

I started taking vitamins and allergy medication
It really made me angry when I went to the store and found that daily vitamins were about $15. I know, that's really not that much in the grand scheme of things, but if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a cheap skate. I bought them anyway. I bought the generic Claratin from Sam's club. That stuff wasn't cheap either, but I had taken that previously and knew it worked for me. I started taking these every day, and I stopped getting sick. I'm no doctor, and this definitely isn't medical advice, but this is what worked for me.

Back to my original story, my professor was understanding and graded my paper. I got a 92% on it. Not bad. Maybe if I had waited until after my ordeal that day to write the paper, I would have been more of an expert on sewage. You don't want to be an expert though. Trust me. Take your vitamins.