My New Friend and Enemy: Mono

You know, I never thought I would get mono. Actually, I thought I would be the last person ever to get mono. After every other single person in the world had mono, then maybe I’d get mono. That’s what I thought. Hmm…

And I’m not entirely sure why that was my thinking anyway. I’ve had strep loads of times. My throat swells in pain every year at least once or twice from some infection or another. I catch colds and flus and various other sicknesses as much as the next person. So why not mono?

I do not drink after people, eat after people, I don’t really even like to touch door knobs. I don’t kiss people. That used to be the picture of me. But recently, since you know, I fell in love and everything, that has changed. In any case, I guess as fate would have it, mono creeped into my life.

It started with swollen lymph nodes. I noticed them right away. How can you not notice them? It’s like there was a pole in my neck. But everybody I asked to feel it didn’t feel anything. Which led me to believe I was crazy. My mom just thought I needed sleep. So did Justin. My father, the doctor, told me it was allergies. My friends all told me it was stress.

And so, I didn’t do a darn thing about it. I left for college and cried like a little girl ’cause leaving Justin six hours north was obviously not an easy thing to do. Got to my dorm, unpacked, felt tired, unpacked, went to sleep.

Weird things started to happen. Food just stopped looking good. I felt this general, kind of vague sickness most of the time. And I started to get fevers. The swollen neck thing was really noticeable now…I got a random bloody nose one morning but I figured that must be the allergies…

So I took IBprofin and dealt with whatever it was.

But it didn’t last long. I would sit in class and just want to cry. It was just so confusing. I’ve been sick loads of times and this one was just different. So I skipped chapel and went to see the nurse.

Who I cried in front of. Who sent me to the doctor. Who I sort of kept it together around, until he told me it was probably mono, and so then I preceded to cry in front of him too. That one was actually kind of awkward.

Anyway, I’ve been told not to go to class til monday, so I’m missing a TON of class. Which I don’t like. But I’m just really praying two things: Please Lord, let Justin not get it from me, and Please Lord, let my throat not hurt too bad.

But He knows it’ll make me stronger!