How do you overcome a bad first semester?

<p>Hi guys,</p>

<p>I'm wondering what I should do to overcome a bad first semester in college. Things didn't start out badly this year, but they went downhill after I got really sick at the end of September. A cold I got turned into a month-long sinus and ear infection that almost ruptured my eardrum and had my doctors talking about putting me into surgery (again). The medication I took for it, literally, made me suicidal, especially considering it was an 875g dose. I thought that infection would be the last one, but I've gotten two more since then. The second one was treated with the same medication as before. The third one was treated with new medication, but it cost me a lot of sleep because I was in agony for several. On top of that, my last infection came during finals. Additionally, my assistive devices broke about four times in the second half of the semester and I spent a good deal of time running back and forth to my specialist to fix them.
My only worry about this flare-up is that the sickness is a chronic problem for me, and I lost control of it again. My high school GPA up until the end of my junior year was terrible (3.0) because I chronically ill and had an undiagnosed disability. After I got the help I needed, I earned a 3.7 GPA in my senior year of high school. I wanted to show in my transfer app that my illness was under control, but now I don't know if they'll believe me.
I know I can do the work of any school since I am a straight-A student when I am healthy. However, I don't know what I can do in an application to overcome another series of flare-ups. The change in my anti-biotic helped a lot and my device is fixed. Another semester of flare-ups shouldn't happen again. I don't want to use this as an excuse, but at the same time, it's really sucked the life out of me. Does anybody here have advice or a similar scenario they've overcome?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>