Danny's Journal Continues

March 20-25

Monday morning started out great. I awoke without any grogginess and the weather was quite nice out. By the way I felt as I got ready, I just knew that I would have a productive day, if not week.

Trotting along my way to the office for my internship, I began to recap on my time in Sydney so far. The last few weeks have been flying by with so much happening, all good of course. Football was kicking my butt, whipping me up into shape for the upcoming season. All the hard training was getting me anxious to hit the field and get into some real action.  I also have been enjoying my academic courses a lot, especially lately. Learning new ideas and topics have always intrigued me, so much of what I was studying (Australian politics and Aboriginal studies are certainly both new), I found to be extremely mind-stimulating.

I had just finished my first written assignment (for my Aboriginal studies class) over the weekend and was especially ready to turn it in. The paper was a critical analysis on an article written by a Macquarie University professor from the Anthropology department. At the completion of the paper, I was content with my work and decided to drop it off at the department office at the end of the day.

The remainder of the day was quite smooth as I finished almost three hours at the internship office and one lecture concerning the issues behind Australia’s High Court. Come evening time, I wasn’t feeling exactly smooth. As I was doing my extremely long readings for my Aboriginal studies course my head just felt like it was spinning. I was curious as to think that all the reading I was doing was surely making me crazy. That was not the case, because later on my body started enigmatically turning hot and cold. I decided to call it a night and jumped into bed.

The next morning was harsh, a huge contrast to yesterday…My throat was so swollen I could hardly shove any of my breakfast down. Just as I was about to leave, I took some Panadol (Australia’s equivalent to Tylenol) as an attempt to relieve the pain for I had a full day ahead of me.

I made it through my morning hours at the Aboriginal studies lecture and tutorial, but the swollenness worsened as time went on. During my second Australian Politics lecture of the week, I could no longer bare the illness incubating in me. Directly after the lecture finished, I made my way to the student health services building. Unfortunately, the doctor was completely booked for the rest of the day so I had to make an appointment for Wednesday. I was not sure what was wrong with me, nor would I find out for another 24 hours.

I thought it would be best to stay home from training, so I e-mailed the club President, Jez and one of the assistant coaches to inform them of my illness. The next day, I stumbled out of bed still with a swollen throat and uncontrollable hot/cold feverish feelings. I slowly made it to my appointment, and by the end, the doctor diagnosed me with tonsillitis. She said that it’s very common among students living in close quarters such as where I reside (later I found out that there were a handful of students living near me infected). I was ordered to rest until Saturday and take Penicillin four times a day. To this I wisely went to the campus pharmacy, bought the recommended medicine and headed straight home for bed.

The rest of the week I did exactly what the doctor informed me to do. It is widely known that the more you rest and relax, the quicker the recovery and I took this to heart. There’s nothing worse than knowing that you’re in an awesome, foreign country such as Australia with so much to do but have to sit in bed and chill out only. And thinking back on how I felt Monday morning, it was extremely ironic how this week actually turned out.

- Danny Harris
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