For the typical Dartmouth student, health concerns likely do not extend far beyond avoiding swine flu and penciling in trips to the gym.
For students with chronic medical conditions, however, things can be quite different.
Between classes, clubs and downtime, these students' weekly schedules involve monitoring their physical state in order to stay healthy.
Owen Jennings '11 was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder in his liver just three months before enrolling at the College. In order to avoid liver failure, he takes up to nine prescription drugs daily, gets blood drawn weekly and regularly travels to New York for specialized treatments.
"Being kept alive by artificial means, that's just a weird feeling to grapple with," Jennings said.
At Dartmouth, Jennings visits Dick's House every week and said that his experience with Dartmouth's health services have been largely positive.
"I've gotten blood taken there every week for the past two and a half years, and procedures that can take five or six hours in New Jersey and New York City are done in five minutes." he said.
Jennings said that Dartmouth's health insurance policy is much more affordable that the HMO he used before coming to the College. While he is still quibbling over a $25,000 charge with his old HMO, he said he hasn't had to pay for any treatments or medicates obtained from Dick's House.
The out-of-pocket cost of Jennings' prescriptions would amount to about $2,200 per month, he said, adding that his former insurance policy required a $30 to $40 co-pay for each drug.
Although Jennings' condition can be emotionally draining, he said, he does not dwell on the fact that his life is different than that of a typical college student.
"You can't just feel sorry for yourself and think about the negative, because it won't get you anywhere," he said.
Jennings added that his inability to drink alcohol because of his liver disorder has given him an interesting perspective on Dartmouth's social scene.
"It isn't true what people say that the Dartmouth social scene is 100 percent about drinking," he said. "It's only 99 percent about drinking, so I have just made a point of finding that other 1 percent."
Caroline Godfrey '12 was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes this past August. Her daily routine at Dartmouth includes taking four or five insulin shots and checking her blood sugar with a finger prick eight times a day in order to prevent her blood sugar from running too high or too low.
Godfrey said that, although the shots and pin pricks are not terribly time consuming, she must consider how her blood sugar is affected by every activity that she does. Spikes or dips in her blood sugar significantly inhibit her ability to function normally, she said.
As a member of the Dartmouth women's crew team, Godfrey takes special precautions in order to prevent her condition from affecting her athletic performance. She carries glucose with her while on the water, and her coaches are trained to administer glycogen shots if she loses consciousness.
"I have to be very careful and think about exactly how my blood sugar is going to respond to the workout that day," Godfrey said. "It's stressful before something that's really important and I don't have a margin of error."
Like Jennings, Godfrey's condition also requires her to take extra precautions in her social life.
"When I go out, I make sure that I am always in the near vicinity of someone who knows I am diabetic," she said.
Godfrey said that if her friends did not know about her condition, they could mistake her symptoms of low blood sugar for drunkenness. She explained that this would be dangerous because they might simply put her to bed instead of getting her immediate treatment.
Like many individuals with chronic illnesses, Godfrey wears a medical identification bracelet that can help alert health care providers to her preexisting condition. Safety and Security officers and paramedics are trained to look for these bracelets and know to investigate the conditions of students who wear them before immediately treating them for alcohol poisoning, she said.
After being diagnosed, Godfrey said that she is still adjusting to her new lifestyle.
"There are days when you realize that this is your life now and that's just kind of the way it goes," she said. "But there are also days when it's really hard and you just think, why you?"
Ian Dumont '09 was born with a blood disorder that prevents him from healing quickly from cuts or injuries. While he said that his condition does not affect him on a daily basis, it often has consequences both academic and social.
For example, if Dumont sustains any injury even a nosebleed he must go in for treatment immediately, causing him to miss class on short notice, Dumont said. Dumont, who now works at the Tucker Foundation, said he met with his professors every term to inform them of his condition in order to avoid confusion later on.
"I learned throughout the years that I should [talk to profs early on] just to cover my own ass," Dumont said.
Obtaining the necessary documentation to excuse him from classes was difficult at first, he said, because Dick's House, the Student Accessibility Services Office and academic offices do not have a streamlined information system.
Dumont was unaware of the resources that the school offered, he said, adding that if he knew about his options from the beginning, his first years at the College would have been less stressful.
"They do have some information, most of it is very high quality," he said. "But are you going to be able to find it? It took me four years to find all that information."
Dumont said that the College lacks a strong support system for students with chronic health conditions, physical disabilities or learning disabilities. A mentoring system, such as the one offered by the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, would ensure that students entering Dartmouth understand how to navigate the school's resources in order to get the treatment and assistance that they need, he said.
"You can navigate the administration if you're a strong enough student and you're a good enough activist and self-advocate, but not every student should have to do that," Dumont said. "You shouldn't have to spend your time trying to build up an infrastructure that should already be here like it is for every other issue."
In a recent interview with The Dartmouth, Accessibility Services director Ward Newmeyer said Accessibility Services reached out to students with disabilities in a letter to the freshman class, but noted that he worries about students who are not aware of their disability and might not know to seek help.
Acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears told The Dartmouth earlier this month that the gap between primary school, where the brunt of the responsibility for diagnosing and addressing disabilities lies with the school, and college, where it is a shared responsibility, can create a stark culture change for students upon arrival at Dartmouth.
"I think we can do more to increase the profile of the [Accessibility Services] office so that students are aware that there are services available to them," told The Dartmouth earlier this month. "I think we can do more to help students understand what their rights are here, and do more to help staff and faculty to understand what our responsibilities are in meeting the needs of students with disabilities."
The drug that mediates Dumont's bleeding episodes requires refrigeration, and Dumont said needing to have this medication on hand has limited his ability to pursue all of the opportunities that interest him.
Dumont said he was told by administrators that his condition presented too great of a liability for him to go on the Environmental Sciences Foreign Study Program in South Africa, and that he was consequently forced to re-evaluate his major. He was also rejected from the Peace Corps because of his condition, he said.
"I wanted to do the Peace Corps since I was in junior high," he said. "I understood once I sat back and rationalized it but it doesn't mean that it's any easier, having a dream like that and then having to shoot it down."
