The Sickest I've Ever Been

My first semester in college at IIT, I lost 9 Kg. The next semester, I lost 9 more Kg. Both of these were for different reasons.

Usually when people go to college, there is what is called the "Freshman 15" where people who have just come to college gain 7 Kg (which is 15 pounds in nonmetric). Well, at IIT, we have the "Freshman -20". The food is so bad that we actually lose weight. I was not the only one who lost weight either. When I first came to college, I was a bit pudgy. My Dad cooks very well and my Mom likes having snacks around, so I was very well fed at home. At IIT that changed. IIT's food is supplied by a company named Sodexho. Avoid them at all costs.

Sodexho has many bad points. I do not know exactly where the problem comes from. It might have been IIT's handling of the food even. For eating their food, I have had several bad experiences. The fruit that was out was typically very old. After biting an apple, it was not uncommon to find the whole core rotten. The meat was not properly cooked. One time I was about to take a bite out of it, and a vegetarian friend of mind pointed out that the meat was practically raw. You could clearly see the artery coming out of it. The eating area was unclean. They cafeteria workers did not clean up the trays. They would sit on the conveyor belt. Many flies would start swarming around the uneaten food in the trays. On top of that, there were unreasonable terms in there contract. Sodexho does not allow any food to be delivered to premises where it delivers food. That means that you may not have pizza, chinese food, or any other common types of "order out" food delivered. This made social gatherings especially difficult. For those, you would have to find a building at IIT where Sodexho did not deliver food. Having inedible food would not be so bad if we were at least allowed to cook our own, but IIT also has 1 kitchen per floor which it does not allow regular students to use. The fire safety rules prevent us from having separate cooking appliances. It was lock-in of the worst type. After being subjected to this, instead of seeing eating as enjoyable, I saw it only as a means to survive. It took several years before I was able to enjoy food again.

The next semester was even worse, but for different reasons. Near the end of the semester, I got ill. A lump of puss formed in the back of my throat. At first, it was only uncomfortable, but it kept on getting larger. Soon, I was unable to talk or eat. I could barely drink and the automatic swollowing was disabled, so saliva continually built up in my throat and I would have to go drool. I communicated by typing, writing, making gutteral sounds, and gesturing emphatically. For not being able to eat, I was very tired, so I spent most of the rest of my time in bed. Unfortunately, time for final exams came. I some how was able to get to and pass my final exams, although I was late to some of them. The professors were kind and understood my situation. On one of the exams, I was almost done, but too much saliva had accumulated, so I handed in my test early so I could go drool. The bathroom policy was not the nicest, which is why I didn't just ask to be excused.

After all of that, I had an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor appointment. Fortunately, the procedure was very simple. He poked the back of my throat with a needle. All of the puss and blood came out of my mouth. There was a lot of it. Afterwards, I came close to passing out, so the doctor let me stay in the lobby until I recovered. He prescribed strong antibiotics. After that, I was able to return. A kind man offered me a vitamin C tablet on the train ride.

Getting the antibiotics was quite a trek. I still had no energy. I crossed the bridge at Roosevelt. It seemed like the longest bridge ever. I had to take rests several times. I went to the pharmacy there, but they didn't have it. I asked them to find the nearest one that did. Fortunately there was one just a little further up the road. I was able to get my prescription filled there. There were a few other stops to be made. Fortunately, at that point, my friend finished his finals and was able to drive me around.

My parents came to pick me up. They were scared at how I looked. My Mom said that I looked like a skeleton. I still had not eaten anything. My throad had healed a bit. On the trip back home from college, we made a stop at a Chinese restaurant. I had egg drop soup. It was the most solid food that I had eaten in a long time. When I got back, my parents weighed me. I had lost 9 Kg more since the previous semester, making the total weight lost in the first year 18 Kg (40 pounds in nonmetric). Fortunately, once I was able to eat again, I gained some of the weight back.

A while later, after I was healthy again, the disease started slowly coming back. I went to the doctor at home so he could do more tests. He gave me another strong antibiotics prescription to make sure that it was all dead. He took a strep culture. A while later, the culture came back negative. In a followup, he did another culture because the disease looked like strep. It was also negative. Fortunately, after that, the disease was gone. I have no idea what I had, but from the tests, it wasn't strep.