Please, let me die!

Motivation rising

Even if it was still hard for me to follow the professors in their lectures, I really noticed that I improved a bit. Also, because I was spending the whole day communicating with my friend in French (yes, actually he wanted to improve his English but one day we just switched to French, and it stayed like that). That helped me a lot to get used to the language. But also, because I was very ambitious and looked up every single word, I could understand the technical texts better and better.

The week passed by as usual - lectures, texts to read, learning for the weekly marketing test, trying to find some useful books in the library and meeting up with some people to go for a coffee or to a bar. It was good to have a daily life that was quite normal, because I am a person that needs a bit of routine - not too much, but anyway a little bit. I skyped with my family and my boyfriend and met several times with my new friend for a coffee or for lunch in the cafeteria of the university.

Cafeteria Dream in France

Ah, yes, the cafeteria. The first time I entered it was my second week with the other German girl and two first semester students she met in one of the courses we don't have together. They were quite nice and so we decided to eat with them and try the cafeteria food of France. I didn't expect a lot, because I've never eaten really good food in a university cafeteria, but I was SO surprised! It was only 3, 20 € for the meal and you got so many things. You got 1 main course, 2 side dishes, 1 or 2 portions of fruits and 1 portion of dessert. And it was all included in the 3, 20 €! In Germany you have to pay for the meal, for the side dish, for the salad and for the dessert separately and in the end, if you really choose everything, you pay up to 8 or 10 Euros (depends on the main course). So, I was (positively) shocked and could hardly eat everything on my plate, it was a lot! Furthermore, you could have water for free which is really nice. So, I was sure that I would eat more often in the cafeteria.

Feeling Sick - The Nightmare begins

But, back to the week now. Everything went fine as always, but after I went to the cafeteria on Wednesday with my friend and he told me that he didn't feel so good that day, the next day I woke up and felt dead. Really, I felt so bad and I thought I wouldn't be able to get up. But I forced myself to get up and went to university. It became worse during the lectures, so after the last one at 6pm I went to the pharmacy in order to buy some medicaments. But as I didn't exactly know what the problem was, I only could buy Ibuprofen and some throat pills. So, I went home and got directly into bed with a cup of tea. I thought probably it would be better the next day, so no reason to worry.

But it wasn't. I woke up several times during the night and the next morning I just couldn't get up. I changed from hot to cold within 30 minutes and my head hurt so much. So, I decided not to go to the lectures that afternoon and wrote my German friend a message if she could send me her notes afterwards. She told me to stay in bed and get well soon and so did I. But it's hard to be sick if there's nobody to help. I had to clean my dishes, wash my clothes, go to the supermarket and I didn't even want to get out of bed because I think I've never felt so sick in my whole life. At least I had my French friend to write the whole day, he offered me his help, but I knew that he had a lot to do so I just told him that I would be able to survive myself. So, I forced myself to get out of bed and go to the supermarket in order to look for some noodle soups and things that were easy to cook and easy to eat. Unfortunately, there wasn't any noodle soup in the whole supermarket! What's wrong with French supermarkets? So, I bought some other things and went home. When I arrived, I had to sleep before I could do anything else. I was so weak, I just wanted to stay in bed and die. I called my Dad and told him that I was really sick and his girlfriend gave me some advice what to do in order to get well soon.

Fortunately, it was weekend, so I would not miss any more courses for the moment. But I had a lot to read, to learn and to do actually. And I didn't want to stay in bed the whole weekend. But I had no choice, I couldn't even wash my clothes because the thought of going down let me sleep again. So, I decided to forget about that and forced myself to go into the kitchen and cook something.

That status went on until Sunday evening, I didn't get better at lot, so I had to stay at home on Monday, too. Fortunately, on Tuesday it was better so I went to the lectures even if I knew that it would have been better to stay in bed for one or two more days. But I couldn't miss any more courses.

After the courses I went to the pharmacy once more in order to get other medicine because now I already knew what hurt and so on and maybe I could get better medicaments. So, until Wednesday it was kind of okay, I could even go to the Marketing exam on Thursday and take the exam - I felt still terrible but well. On Friday I went to university to the first lecture (the one with the only 20 people), but suddenly I felt so bad that I went to the professor (actually it was mandatory to go to that lecture) and told him that I'd prefer to go home because I felt sick. He looked at me and told me that that would be a great idea and let me go. So, I took the next bus and went back to bed. It became worse during the evening and I asked myself if it would become better sometime. I just wanted to die.

The Cinema Mistake

On Sunday I felt a bit better and I wanted to watch 50 Shades of Grey in the cinema with my Scottish friend. We went there and I really felt okay during the movie, even if it was a little bit cold in the room. Afterwards there was the big problem - we were waiting for the bus, but as there were so many people it was too full, and we had to wait 30 more minutes for the next bus. I was freezing and just wanted to get back to my bed. Finally, we arrived at home but even after a hot shower and 2 cups of tea I didn't stop feeling cold. It was like that during the whole night and I already knew that it was no good sign. And I was right. The next day I felt so terrible that I decided to go to a doctor. We had received a list from the international office with some doctors and I took the only one who was working at this time.

Visiting a Doctor in France - The Hell

But I had to go by bus, so I grabbed the warmest clothes I had and went to the bus station. I felt like I would die in the next minutes, I couldn't even sit because I felt so weak. Finally, the bus was there and 20 minutes later I arrived at the doctor. Of course, a lot of people were sick at that time of the year, so I had to wait long. Very long. After almost two and a half hours it was my turn finally. I could not describe really good what was hurting and what I felt exactly but of course he found out that I had a flu. He gave me a prescription for some stronger medicaments and a piece of paper for my courses. So, I had to get to the pharmacy and to the supermarket as well, because I didn't have water and I didn't want to eat anything, but I knew that I had to. So, I went the 5 minutes to the mall, bought some things and went to the pharmacy then. I could hardly walk or stand and they all looked at me with a lot of compassion. I got the medicaments which were surprisingly cheap and got the bus to the residency (at least a bit of luck for me) which was just arriving.

20 minutes later I was back to my room and fell into bed. I took all the medicaments he gave me and slept almost the whole day. Afterwards, I felt a little bit better, but could still not eat anything or do anything. So, I just read my book, slept, wrote WhatsApp messages, read my book and slept. That's all I did for 2 more days.

Then I finally felt better and could go to university again. I was so happy to feel better that I was really afraid to get sick again. I wore the warmest clothes I found, ate so many fruits and washed my hand 50 times a day just to not get sick again. I really realized how helpless you can be totally alone without anybody to call to come over and bring some food or wash some clothes or go to the supermarket to buy something. That was a quite important lesson during my time abroad.

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