When the cold hits.

When hearing about fresher’s week people mainly talk about the drinking and the parties. People complain about the hangovers, and you see zombies in the back rows of the lecture halls, half asleep and nursing bottled water. But the week-long hangover of fresher’s week isn’t the lowest point you will reach. Freshers flu is real. And it sucks.

It starts off with a basic cold, not to bad but enough to cause discomfort. Then it stays and stays, each time you think you’re in the clear you get re-infected. The cold weather kicks in and you realize you don’t own a coat or decent clothing. It develops into a cough an all your friends avoid you to stay healthy themselves. You walk around constantly cold and Starbucks becomes your new best friend (and your bank accounts worst enemy). When you’ve been ill for over a month and your living off cold and flu tablets you decide it’s time to call a Doctor. This is when the real fun starts.

At this point you begin to understand why everyone at fresher’s fair told you to sign up to the university medical centre, and you hate yourself for ignoring them. You trudge to the doctor’s office only to see a never-ending queue of people, just like you, who thought there was no need to sign up. You wait for hours, eventually fill in the form, only to be told there are no appointments available. Your told to phone at 8 am the next morning to see if there are any appointments. But as a student you sleep though all three alarms wake up at 10 and phone, only to be told there’s nothing available and you need to call at 8 am the next morning. It a vicious cycle that seemingly never ends.

But it does. Eventually, you get an appointment. You arrive on the day and use the bathrooms, while there you catch sight of a meningitis poster on the back of the cubicle door and realize you haven't had it. Panic sets in and you convince yourself you have it. you spend the following twenty minutes hating yourself for not showing more care with your health and well-being. Once you reach the room you babel to the doctor nervously, wishing your mum was here to do the talking like she used to. Just as the freak out reaches a climax the doctor informs you that you merely have a common cold and you go home to cry over a 25p soup that taste like washing up liquid.