Glandular Fever

Good Things About Having Mono:
-good excuse to sleep in all day long
-good excuse to get out of doing things I don't want to ("I can't... I don't have the energy... I have mono...")
-good excuse not to share any of my food
-it's almost like a rite of passage for college girls
-people assume I have a better dating life than I really do
-I can play the sick card for a very long time (one of my sisters had the fatigue from mono for three months, so I have two months to use mono as an excuse for things)
-I got to take steroids and make all the jokes I wanted about it
-I got to eat ice cream as a mainstay of my diet for two weeks, and no one thought a thing of it
-I finally have some good sick stories again (it's been a year and a half since my last real illness, and the stories from that one are embarrassing)
-LOTS of tv and movies
-the delirium that accompanied a week of fevers

The Bad Things About Having Mono:
-being sick isn't actually fun
-running a constant low grade fever, and daily high fevers, for over a week
-super swollen tonsils (and glands)
-not being able to swallow anything (sometimes even ice cream was too difficult)
-not being able to eat solid foods for at least a week
-getting dehydrated on a regular basis, in part because of above complaints
-not being able to move around freely
-not having the mental ability to do much more than watch tv and movies
-no energy
-the mono jokes get old!
-actually being sick for at least a month
-having to take steroids (I am currently unsure whether steroids were developed as medicine or as a torture device)
-not being able to share food
-not understanding what is reality and what is fiction for a rather long period of time
-the constant struggle between fatigue

Illness

The Symptoms of Meningitis:
-Fever
-Severe and persistent headache
-Stiff and painful neck, especially when trying to touch the chin to the chest
-Vomiting
-Confusion, and decreased levels of consciousness
-Seizures
-Sluggishness, muscle aches and weakness, and strange feelings (such as tingling) or weakness throughout the body
-Eye sensitivity and eye pain from bright lights
-Skin rash
-Dizzy spells

The Symptoms of Mononucleosis:
-Fever, which may range from 101 F to 104 F, and chills
-Sore throat, often with white patches on the tonsils (which may resemble strep throat)
-Swollen tonsils
-Headache or body aches
-A lack of energy and fatigue
-Loss of Appetite
-Pain in the upper-left part of the abdomen, which may indicate that the spleen has become enlarged

The Symptoms of Influenza:
-Fever (usually high)
-Severe aches and pains in the joints and muscles around the eyes
-Generalized weakness
-Ill appearance with warm, flushed skin and red, watery eyes
-Headache
-Dry cough
-Sore throat and watery discharge from the nose


The Symptoms of Strep Throat:
-Severe and sudden sore throat without coughing, sneezing, or other cold symptoms
-Pain or difficulty swallowing
-Fever over 101 F, lower fevers may indicate a viral infection and not strep
-Swollen lymph nodes in the neck
-White or yellow spots or coating on the throat and tonsils
-Bright red throat or dark red spots on the roof of your mouth at the back near the throat
-Swollen tonsils, although this symptom may also be caused by viral infection

(http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/common-topics/default.htm)