As a health worker for Unit 3 this past year, I was used to residents coming to my door late at night, timidly asking if I had any banana-flavored condoms left or wondering how to make an appointment at the Tang Center. In fact, I looked forward to those interactions. But 3 a.m. was a pretty unusual time to hear any knocking. Groggy, confused, and clad in my uncomfortably tight boxer briefs, I opened the door on a late Friday night to two serious faces staring nervously right at me.
I could tell this wasn’t just a late-night condom run. Standing in my doorway, one of them bluntly said, “I think our friend has alcohol poisoning.”
I muttered an expletive under my breath.
Sure, I was trained to notice signs of alcohol poisoning. “Remember ‘CUSP’: clammy, unconscious, slow breathing, pale.” Super easy, right? But until then, I had never been faced with such a situation.
So I followed them to their floor, shuffling through my memory bank to recall everything I had learned about alcohol poisoning and got ready to call 911.
When I got to her room, I found the girl in question lying on the bed, inebriated and surrounded by her floormates. She was perfectly conscious and entirely capable of carrying on conversation. But I proceeded through the checklist — just in case.
Normal breathing: check. Clammy: nope. Pale: not at all. So I reassured her friends that she wasn’t showing any signs of alcohol poisoning but that it would be a good idea to keep an eye on her throughout the night and to find me if they had any remaining concerns.
I took the walk back up to my floor feeling incredibly relieved, and it immediately occurred to me that the week’s “health tip” that I posted was about partying safe and being a good bystander in case of emergency. My residents had actually taken something from my tip and used it that night to keep themselves safe and healthy.
That stressful five-minute encounter proved that all of the responsibilities, commitments and experiences that contribute to the complex life of a college student open the door to a variety of health issues. From relationships to the flu, managing these issues is crucial to maintaining yourself.
As fun as Berkeley is, I think the student body can still make improvements among itself — not necessarily in its recognition of the full scope of existing health concerns, but rather in how students make each other conscious of these concerns. How many times have you walked down Sproul and had the opportunity to trade the business flier that you blindly grabbed for something associated with student health? The advertising of groups, organizations, programs and resources dedicated to student health just isn’t as prominent as it should be.
We have — or, rather, should have — the fundamental right to pursue our interests and strengthen our creative spirit with no restrictions. That’s what these four years are for, right? But being bummed about an ailing relationship — romantic or platonic — or being stressed about classes to the point where sleep becomes an afterthought does just that: present restrictions. While these kinds of things may not be entirely preventable, creating a dialogue around them and raising awareness among students can never hurt.
To consider myself an undeniable expert on things like relationships, sex, depression and stress would be completely foolish, but I’m trying to increase the understanding of these issues. A large aspect of my job was to educate the residents on all aspects of college health through weekly health tips, one-on-one interactions and monthly events.
Over the course of the year, I had numerous encounters with students relating to any issue you could possibly imagine — from common things like stress, depression and nutrition to unexpected afflictions like scalp sunburns, infected foot mosquito bites and random requests for XXL condoms. A happy result of all this is the well-rounded outlook I gained on the range of issues that we as a student body have to deal with on top of our academic responsibilities.
I saw how unnerving it could be to constantly worry about the potential consequences of unprotected sex from the previous night. I saw how debilitating depression could be for someone who was so intelligent but didn’t have the energy to reach his or her potential. By no means am I downplaying these situations, but the consequences of some of these instances could have been prevented — or, at least, eased — with the right resources.
I truly wish this column could solve all the health and wellness issues on campus. More reasonably, however, it will serve as an additional resource to raise awareness of the things we don’t always think about. Making college health issues more prominent on our campus will be difficult — but not everything is as easy or straightforward as CUSP.
Shahin Firouzbakht writes a Thursday column on health issues affecting student life. Contact Shahin Firouzbakht at [email protected].