White pill doesn’t help
COMMENTARY
Lauren Cates

As I sat here listening to my roommate throw up into our apartment toilet, it came to me that college has been one of the sickest periods in my life.

Not sick as in grotesque, but as in the number of times a year I have contracted viral infections, sinus infections, 24-hour flu and the plain, old common cold. And it was during these times of ill health that the thing I most wanted, more than anything in the world, was in fact my mommy.

Some cough drops and the same prescription for every illness is the most you’ll get from the TCU Health Center. It’s not that the Health Center is inefficient, because they have improved their speed and quality of service dramatically throughout my years here. It’s that most of the time they don’t solve your ailment. Giving you the same pill with the same directions, with a “you’ll just have to wait it out,” doesn’t seem an effective means to cure illness.

I’m not asking for an immediate cure; just a cure. I know its not a matter of incompetence because all the staff at the Health Center are expertly trained and very intelligent. But after numerous visits throughout my years at TCU, I’m beginning to wonder if there is some kind of conspiracy happening behind those doors.

Is there some kind of corrupt pharmaceutical conspiracy that has the Health Center powerless in its grasp? Do the makers of Guaifenex (you know, that little white pill) want everyone in the university to take a never-ending supply of two pills twice a day indefinitely? I think investigation must go into this topic.

It’s already hard enough being in college, sick and without your mother to write you a sick note (which, by the way, are nearly impossible to get in college). My GPA has been significantly lowered just by the effects of wanting to die and having to take mid-terms and exams while so doped up on over-the-counter meds that I wouldn’t even know my last name.

The madness needs to stop.

Someone needs to overthrow the tyrannical grip that the makers of Guaifenex have over the doctors and nurses at the Health Center. This pharmaceutical monopoly must evolve into prescriptions for illnesses that actually help in a reasonable amount of time.

So if I’m wrong, if there really are no better cures for ailments than that little white pill, please tell me. If there are students out there who have actually recovered from the never-ending stream of illnesses that is college, let me know.

Maybe it’s just me.

Lauren Cates is a junior advertising/public relations major from Houston.