Itchy, watery eyes? Sore throat? Gooey boogers running down your face? These symptoms mean one of two things: Either you've contracted a combo of pinkeye, gonorrhea, and Ebola virus, or, far worse, you are one of millions who suffer from seasonal allergies.
There was a time when Arizona was considered a haven for allergy sufferers because of its complete lack of vegetation, and thus absence of irritants like pollen. But because plants are pretty, people brought them along as Arizona became urbanized. Yes, trees provide shade and oxygen, which are both enjoyable luxuries. They also distribute massive clouds of airborne sperm that attack every available mucus membrane, including our eyes, noses and throats.
These tree swimmers that are trying to take root in the general vicinity of our faces naturally upset our bodies. So they react by expelling grotesque quantities of snot, phlegm and eye boogers. There are few things less pleasant than waking up with your puffy eyes crusted shut.
Personally, my eyes are yet to crust over this season. Instead, they turn red, swell up and feel as if I have a few bumblebees caught inside my eyelids, buzzing incessantly. Just the other day, I was blinking my tortured eyes in the mirror, only to discover that, with every blink, my corneas formed a thick wrinkle on the surface of my eye.
I should probably see a medical professional for such a condition, but the only ones available to me are at the Campus Health Service.
But I am probably better off going it alone than waiting more than three hours for a one-minute inspection where the doctor doesn't even look at my chart and tries to give me an injection of something I'm allergic to.
I feel for the employees of the Campus Health Service. They have to spend all day dealing with thousands of depraved students who, for the most part, could have avoided their ailment entirely had they better understood the concepts of safe sex and alcohol poisoning. Beyond those basic factors, I cannot imagine the weird crap that leads ASU students to the CHS waiting room but I'm sure a lot of it is very, very gross.
Also, the Campus Health Service is clearly underfunded and understaffed. With the amount of money ASU puts into construction and campus maintenance, we [the student body] should be given at least as much care. Staff and faculty should also have stellar health benefits. (We cannot afford an Ebola outbreak on campus — President Crow would have a really hard time reaching the 100,000 students by 2010 goal if students are dropping dead as quickly as they are accepted.)
Right now, our student health care is barely better than that of Third-World countries. I honestly was nearly given an injection of Penicillin, my one drug allergy. This is not to mention the countless misdiagnoses resulting from insufficient inspection of patients and their symptoms. I know people who were told they had the flu, when in fact they were walking around with pneumonia.
And don't even get me started on those HPV immunization shots, Gardasil. I cannot entirely blame student healthcare for this one, since I have heard of people passing out from the pain of these shots on national news. My first shot in the series was quick and relatively painless.
The second shot, however, was a different story.
The nurse stuck me in the muscle of my shoulder, which felt about on par with being stabbed repeatedly with a blunt knife. Two weeks later, a bruise roughly the size, shape, and color of a large plum emerged on my shoulder. It looked kind of like a purple sun, with rays of damaged blood vessels sprouting off its spherical form. It took seven weeks from the day of my second shot for the bruise to go away.
Thank you, Campus Health Service.
On the plus side, at least now there's a good chance that I won't catch genital warts — not that STDs were ever a real fear for my celibate self. But on the down side of course, even with genital warts out of the picture, there is still no way to protect against the Ebola virus.
If you don't trust the Campus Health Services and would prefer medical advice from a true expert, e-mail me at: melissa.mapes@asu.edu.
