Hope sprang eternal and the woman, renewed and revived, reached for her lover. Suddenly, before their hands could touch, she uttered a final cough and launched into a fatal collapse upon the stage. Her disease had won, and youth, truth, love, beauty and the pursuit of joy had lost. It was tragic, it was expected, it was opera.

I sat in the audience, as enraptured as my fellow audience members, but harboring my own secret pain. It was not an emotional but rather a physical pain, stemmed in the suppression of an infernal cough and scratchy aching throat. Tears came to my eyes from the intensity of my efforts not to disrupt the soprano’s swan song with my hacking. I needn’t have bothered — throughout the opera’s final act, the cacophony of sneezes, sniffles, coughs and groans had grown increasingly loud. We were all sick and trying to hide it. We were a pack of adults striving to play hooky from illness and disease.

Once upon a time, being sick was, however unpleasant, a vacation of sorts. An excuse for soup and laying about watching movies. While working after college, I enjoyed the occasional sick day, albeit rarely, as a wonderful opportunity to stay in pajamas all day and read paperback fiction and sleep late. A cold or flu seemed a fair price for the chance to escape the daily grind.

In graduate school, being sick seems to exact a higher toll with lesser returns. Graduate courses are often small and one’s absence is noted. With the amount of responsibility on many graduate students’ plates, we rarely have time to go out to a movie, let alone lay in bed all day. As a result, we stay home sick far less often and, when we do so, tend to be genuinely miserable. Too sick to read or write, or even watch television. For those of us with children, we are often caring for them while attempting to care for ourselves as sickness passes through a household like wildfire. It is difficult enough to keep up, falling ill changes our approach to one of catching up, which is an even more difficult pace to maintain.

As a result, I want the popular trends in disease to take heed. Our love affair is over. I find no solace in the bosom of a fever, I find no comfort in missing class, as it only makes life more difficult. I solemnly desire that all germs steer clear and leave me be. If only I had the power to make it so.

This past week, I suffered from laryngitis and, immune system being a mess, a host of other ailments. I missed a week of class, and it was not fun for one single day. I, like my fellow opera patrons, longed for respite. A vacation from my mandatory vacation from classes. I fervently strove for a window in which to play hooky from misery, to have a Ferris Bueller morning, or evening or even a moment of freedom and bliss. In the end, I failed; sick is sick and growing up is, at times, a pain in the ass. I am too old for sick days and can only hope for sympathy from faculty who themselves outgrew sick days during their own graduate education.

Reach columnist Elizabeth Brady at lifestyles@dailyuw.com.