Coping with the flu

Senior David Casper will remember his experience with the H1N1 flu as the worst sickness he has ever had. "You just feel like death basically is the best way to put it," he said. "I just laid in my room and basically got up to go to the bathroom and I think for two days all I ate was Saltine or Goldfish crackers." Casper, who lives off campus, is a member of the UW-Whitewater wrestling team. He missed a week of practices as well as classes. "Missing wrestling practice for a whole week … really set me back," he said. "Mostly teachers were pretty cool about it, so it was nice. I got to make up all of my work." Freshman Thomas Sharpe said it was unclear whether he had H1N1 or the seasonal flu, but doctors are requesting anyone who has flu-like symptoms be isolated to prevent spreading the virus. Sharpe was placed in a quarantine room in the basement of Clem Hall because he was unable to go home while he was sick. "Being quarantined isn't so bad, minus of course being too sick to enjoy it," Sharpe said. "I was given my own bathroom and shower room, and had food delivered to me from Drumlin [Dining Hall]." Sharpe said he was not supposed to go outside without wearing a mask. "And even then I couldn't go see my girlfriend or any of my friends," he said. "Although technically they did not have anyone watching me or keeping tabs on me, but human contact was still not advised." Sharpe said he remembers walking down the sidewalk one day while wearing a mask when a couple students said, "Well, it looks like someone is scared of the swine flu." "I looked at them and replied, 'I should be, I have it,'" he said. "The two immediately backed away and looked at me like I was the plague. All-in-all I found the whole experience annoying, especially since I had fallen behind on my classes, which they wouldn't let me go to." Casper said obviously he would have preferred to not get sick at all, but is glad if it had to happen, it happened sooner rather than later. "It didn't really hurt me that bad with wrestling, and with classes it was after midterms and before finals, so there wasn't a whole lot going on in my classes," he said. "It would have been really bad if it was during finals week or something."