Last Tuesday I felt like a red, juicy, seedy, round tomato.

Red like a tomato because I had a high fever. Juicy like a tomato because I felt like I was going be sick. Seedy like a tomato because my throat was sore and my tonsils were swollen. Round like a tomato because I was immobile.

Every time I stood up my head started to throb even worse than it was already.

I was sick.

I thought it was the flu, because after the first 24 hours I started to feel better. I even went into work.

But the next day, I woke up with all the same tomato-like symptoms again.

I started to panic.

Oh no. Did I have the swine flu? Is that why this sickness was acting all wacky?

Before I could get super worried, I began to regain my strength again. I thought, “This has to be the end of it.”

But when I woke up the next day. you see the pattern.

On Friday, my boyfriend took me to the doctor’s office. It wasn’t the flu. It wasn’t strep throat, like my mom had told me it was.

It was a throat infection.

A throat infection? What exactly does that mean anyway? I was having other symptoms besides in my throat, like the vomiting, the headaches and the fever.

They gave me some amoxicillin to take three times a day.

Isn’t amoxicillin only for people with strep throat?

But after the visit and after my first three rounds of the humongous pill, I can’t deny it-I started to feel better. I feel better now, and it’s been four days.

That’s when I started thinking back to an interview I had a while ago with a recently graduated high school senior who is going to go into nursing. All you need is two years of school, possibly at Lake Land, where she was going, and you could be a certified nurse.

I remember thinking, “You know, nursing is a pretty good field to get into right now. Especially with the way the economy is.”

They are in such high demand, that as soon as you start off as a nurse, you begin to receive bonuses right away.

The baby boomer population is getting older, and when you get older you tend to have more health problems. So, nurses will always be needed in the future.

Of course there are the downfalls because the doctors always bring in the nurses to do the dirty work, like cleaning up after a patient-ew-or doing the tests. But it seems the benefits tremendously outweigh the disadvantages.

Number one, you are helping someone. Number two, if you or your family ever has anything happen to them, you’ll know what to do. And number three, the big pay checks and the guarantee of finding a job.

Sam Sottosanto is a junior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-7942 or at DENopinions@gmail.com.