Most students find that they will fall a little behind in school if they miss a couple of days, but imagine how junior Courtney Rosell felt, who missed nearly two months of school. Rosell suffered from Cytomegalovirus, and spending nights in the hospital and days at home really took a toll on her social and academic life.
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is one of the most common viruses and can infect anyone. Most people don’t even know that they have CMV because the signs and symptoms rarely occur. Symptoms commonly occur in pregnant women, or people with a weak immune system. Once you are infected with CMV you carry it for the rest of your life, making it easier for you to become severely sick again and again. Symptoms of CMV include: fever, Pneumonia, diarrhea, ulcers in the digestive tract, hepatitis, inflammation of the brain, behavioral changes, seizures, coma, and visual impairment.
“Most kids would love to take two months off of school and not have to worry about anything other than laying in bed, but I missed going to school everyday and seeing my friends. Being that sick I would’ve been happy to even able to get up for at least five minutes without feeling exhausted. Being basically quarantined in my bedroom made me feel really alone and helpless.” Rosell said.
Missing that many days of school and not even being able to catch up on school work on the days she took off really put a hole in her first semester grades. All she was able to focus on was being able to feel better. On some days when Rosell felt strong enough, she would have a tutor come to her house and catch her up on missing work so she wouldn’t fall even further behind.
“Seeing Courtney go through this horrible experience really made me sad because she was constantly stressed out about school work and also she didn’t even look like her usual self. Not seeing her bubbly personality really made me feel like she turned into a different person,” boyfriend and Niles North senior Anthony Achim said.
After taking nearly two months off of school, and having maximum bed rest, Rosell was able to come back to school. Her first days back were rough because her body wasn’t use to being up and active for that long, but that motivated her to try to work harder with everything she did.
