Ok, the following story restored my faith in the student clinic and late-night doctors when I was in college. Also, I mention this because you mentioned an engineering exam as well.
I had a Latin class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the spring semester of my junior year. I had missed class one Monday and Wednesday, and the syllabus said there was an exam that Friday. Come Thursday night, I’m merrily studying on my bed around 10 pm when the phone rings and I jerk my head in surprise.
I instantly felt a burning pain in my neck, and I had to look over my left shoulder to minimize the pain. I thought maybe I had pinched a nerve, or something else, but the thought in the back of my head was “I hope I didn’t break my neck.” Then, “I should get this checked out.” Finally, “Um, but I do need to study for the exam.”
I waffled for a few minutes, then decided that a neck injury took priority and walked about two miles to the student clinic, looking over my shoulder the entire way. When I got there, only a nurse was on duty, and he offered to give me some tylenol or give me a voucher to go to the emergency room.
“Emergency room, please,” I cheerfully stated, turning away from him so I could look at him over my shoulder.
Off to the hospital I went, and then an hour of filling out forms (which is rather hard to do when you can’t look in front of you) and trying to read a Newsweek the same way. Eventually, I was dragged off to another room, where the doctor looked me over, diagnosed it as a strained trapezius, and asked if I had classes tomorrow.
“A Latin exam at 1 pm … um, can I get out of it?”
“Sure,” he replied, and handed me two pills. “Take one of these when you get home, and the other when you wake up, and you should be ready to retake the exam on Monday.”
Little did I know that he was being literal. I was knocked out until Saturday night, at which point I hungrily ate and drank and then went back to sleep. Monday morning I raced to the professor’s office hours prior to class, seeing if I could take the exam then and have it graded immediately. As I dashed in, she looked up and said, “Oh, I noticed you were out last week. Are you ready to take the exam?”
“Sure,” I stammered, surprised that she had offered. “Can I do it now?”
“I’d rather you take it during class with the other students.” I then realized that she had delayed the exam for unknown reasons, and cheered to myself that I hadn’t really missed anything by skipping classes like I did. (And I even had a doctor’s note ordering me to abstain from heavy lifting or exams for two days. Would that I could have had one of those any time I wanted …)
