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U.S. Campus Life
I'm going to live
In spite of my initial convictions, it seems that my sudden low spirits this spring have not been caused by diabetes.
As soon as the warm weather arrived this year, I found myself suddenly tired and thirsty all the time. Others tried to convince me that it was strangely coincidental that my self-diagnosed "diabetes" struck simultaneously with the start of one of the most pollen-heavy seasons on record. So for a while, I almost convinced myself that I had developed asthma or some other lung disorder instead. I did have chest congestion, after all.
A long-postponed visit to the campus doctor put an end to my exaggerated fantasies. I had put off the visit because the clinic is only open during normal business hours and I would have to leave the lab for a couple of hours.
Unlike many doctors' offices in the States, BU Health Services does not take appointments, and students can't really choose their own doctor. There are many doctors at the university clinic, and students sit in a common waiting room and wait for the next available doctor to see them.
Sometimes the wait can be as long as 30 minutes, although it is usually much shorter. Apparently, the average wait for this kind of system is much shorter than when an appointment-based system is used. This is because time is not wasted on patients who are late for appointments or who miss them altogether. Patients aren't forced to wait for doctors who have fallen behind, either.
Anyway, because I didn't want to make a trip to the health clinic, I resisted going to the doctor until I realized that my throat hurt so badly for a month that it was affecting my eating habits. Once I decided to go to the clinic, the actual trip turned out to be quite simple. The wait was very short, and in just a few minutes, the doctor officially diagnosed that I had hay fever, and gave me a prescription. He told me that I did not have asthma.
I had never seen a doctor for my allergies before, so it was the first time that I tried a prescription allergy medication. I know that such medications may produce side effects — or may not work at all — but in my case, my allergy symptoms largely disappeared after taking the pills for only a few days. I was quite happy with the pills, except for one factor: the cost.
Allergy pills are a big business in the U.S., as one can easily tell by the number of medications on the market and the aggressive marketing tactics used to sell them. A tremendous amount of research goes into developing these medications, hence the extremely high cost . . . or so the pharmaceutical companies say. In my case, a daily dose costs about $3 (¥357), and my university insurance covers only one-fifth of that cost. This might seem to be a bargain considering how much one's quality of life improves — indeed, I'm willing to pay the price — but plenty of folks can find better ways to use $100 (¥11,900) a month.
Now that I've finally admitted that my hay fever has caused most of the discomfort that I've been feeling for the past couple months, I'm starting to admit that I have other allergies, as well: cats and many fruits, for instance. I think one of the reasons I have resisted the idea of having allergies is because I've always considered myself a very healthy person and people with allergies seemed somehow "weak" to me, both physically and mentally.
For instance, I erroneously felt that I should be "tough" and continue to eat apples in spite of my swollen lips, not really thinking that the allergic reaction might be very serious. I suppose I was denying the swelling in the first place. In my entire life, I've missed school or work only a few times due to illness, even when I was probably quite sick, but I think I finally see that denial of symptoms is not necessarily smart.
Now, the big question is why I felt it was somehow more "reasonable" to have diabetes than allergies.