The pandemic changed my life… for the better
by Natasha Kacharia from the United States
If I got $1 for every time one of my peers said the pandemic robbed them of a year of their college experience, I would be a rich woman. Among college students laid a universal hatred over Zoom University. And, while the pandemic undoubtedly sucked for the world, for me, it was arguably one of the best things that could have happened. I want to preface that I never got COVID-19, and if I had, then maybe I would change my tune.
I spent August 2019 – the month before my freshman year of college – in and out of the emergency room. While I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (UC) my junior year of high school, my UC was mild. It was never ‘emergency room bad’ and definitely ‘cannot even digest water bad.’ I called Stanford up, asking if I could start college in the winter quarter instead of fall quarter for the 2019-2020 school year. As I was a freshman, they said no; if I wanted to take fall quarter off, then I had to take the entire year off, and at that time, it seemed like the worst possible scenario. Remember, pre-pandemic, a gap year had a certain taboo. So, I decided to pack to my bags and moved into freshman dorms with about 1000 over-eager freshman.
A week later I landed in the ER for joint pain.
You see, in high school, the maximum dosage of prednisone I was ever prescribed was 30 milligrams (mg). My freshman year of college was the first time that I was on 60 mg of prednisone. I did not know it at the time, but the higher dosage came with noticeable side effects.
While the prednisone worked wonders on the inflammation on my colon, it also did wonders on my day-to-day life. I woke up and 3 am; thus, I was constantly tired throughout the day. I could not stop eating, and I gained more weight than I could comprehend. Pimples graced my face. I thought I was going insane. It was not until my mom saw a picture of me and asked how much weight I had gained, I realized it was not in my head at all but rather reality. I felt that I was going insane and felt depressed at the same time. The worst part was that I had no one to talk too. My mom would simply comment on my weight gain and tell me to eat healthier; she did not understand the food cravings I would get. My dad thought I was brave for going to college with my UC; I was always the brave and strong one with him, and he would just placate me. My high school friends were off living their best lives. My sickness coupled with the short duration
of time that I attended Stanford meant that I did not have an established friend group. And
honestly even if I did have friends, my friends would not have known me, not really; they would
just have gotten to know ‘sick me.’
So, there I was, a month into the “best years of my life” in a new state, taking more meds than I could count, surrounded by joyful students, and yet I never felt more alone.
My life was in complete freefall.
But I could not leave. I was too ashamed. I spent my entire life working my ass off to get into a school like Stanford, so I kept telling myself that it would get better. Every sacrifice I made to get into Stanford had to mean something, so I stayed. I blamed my depression, my problems on prednisone. I read that depression is a potential side effect of prednisone. Yet, when January came, I was still depressed. If possible, I was more depressed.
Then the pandemic hit, and we were all sent back home.
The pandemic forced me to make the decision that I was too scared to make. It gave me
an escape from the noise. I needed a minute to regroup, to rethink. The pandemic gave me that. It
put everything in perspective.
I realized that I did not want to change the world; I just wanted to be happy. I just wanted
to be healthy.
Featured photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels.