Partner has a cold - but he’s not dying !

We’ve both had the most horrific cold. I started with a sore throat, which progressed quickly to coughing until I puked. Had three days off work sick (I’m a lecturer and no way I could have taught) and three weeks on am still not right. DP got it after me, and is also still coughing.

I picked up some decongestants at the pharmacy earlier in the week, and the assistant told me the pharmacist had/has it - he’s a big Viking type bloke. She said he’d done the half day Saturday like the walking dead, gone home at 2 and straight to bed, then wakened up at 7pm on Sunday other than toilet/water. Another member of staff in the relatively small shop was off with it on the day I was in. I think this is a really nasty bug. I lost taste and smell for a few days so did wonder if it was Covid but didn’t test - I was at home for five days anyway because I was so rough.

Abstract

While clinical characteristics exhibit that susceptibility to COVID-19 infection is equally likely between males and females, clinical outcomes show that males experience both a higher severity and fatality for COVID-19 infection than females.....

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11481-020-09974-z

Maybe just read the science perhaps!?

Or look at deaths due covid say:

Male mortality was 50% higher than female mortality due to covid. Men also suffered from more severe symptoms & inflammation due to covid generally than women did.

See below from Google search: (1st result!!)

RESULTS. Of all cases in 73 countries, 42,933,757 were in women and 40,187,894 in men; 1,274,663 men and 971,899 women died. In overall, the IFR was higher in males (3.17%) than in women (2.26%).

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Sex differences in COVID-19 fatality rate and risk of death

Husband had a cold that morphed into pleurisy. Gosh he was poorly.

I came down with what I would have classes as a cold on Sunday. Rested the day but went to work on Monday and felt wretched all day that night I was up coughing most of the night and a terrible headache. Now had a consistent headache for 3 days, not matter how many painkillers i take, sore ears and chest pain. So I am encouraging you to be open minded to his complaints.

But how many times does that actually happen? Yes, people still due from flu but they usually have something else wrong with them or something underlying for it to really escalate. Weird they were both doctors and didn’t notice.

when I get a cold it knocks me for six people have different thresholds for sickness and colds can have different effects and for me it’s horrible.

Because it’s bollocks.

Sniffing followed by vomiting because you’re so bunged up. Colds are horrible

I woke up with some bug, and feel bloody awful.
Sore throat, barely any voice, temperature, sore eyes, tight chest.
I sympathise with him, as other than cooking some lunch (warming something in the oven) I've done bugger all, all day.

Edited to add, and I doubt I'll do much tomorrow or weekend either unless it goes as fast as it arrived. 💊

He’s being unreasonable to already be saying he won’t be able to do anything all weekend.

But I hate it when people say “just a cold”. Some colds are really mild. But some are awful, and I’ve definitely spent a day in bed with a really bad cold before.

I depends on the person and the type of cold. I rarely get ill but when I get a very bad one I'm vvv ill and a cold is like flu and I can't function. Only thing I can do is sleep it off. I've also had light summer colds and just functioned as normal. Dh colds even the bad ones are long and ongoing but he can function when I'm floored. The fact that your dh was in bed maybe it was a bad case. Keep getting the liquids in and sleep it off. Hope you don't get it

Dh is like this but also won’t go to bed. He lies on the couch so that a/ we can all catch it and b/ everyone can hear him snivel and see how terribly unwell he is.

fwiw dh once was pretty seriously unwell. He should’ve went to hospital earlier but didn’t because he’s hopeless but crucially because he acted exactly the same with that as he did when he had hayfever or a cold.

hoody of doom ✔️
hoody pulled tight with drawstring ✔️
much sniffing ✔️
coughing and retching loudly ✔️
sipping of water slurping loudly ✔️
sighing ✔️
more sighing ✔️
yet more sighing ✔️

So many threads started on here recently where the responses go the opposite direction to standard Mumsnet route.

My OH definitely gets them worse than I do

Not when it comes to blackmail posts I'm not, no.

When I first moved in with my ex and he got a cold, he was positively joyful that his mother would come, put him to bed and wait on him hand and foot. The disappointment was palpable.

Some men just milk it. It's why we've got the universal dressing gown of doom, the little weak voice and the little cough the vast majority recognise in our own men when threads are posted about it.

If someone has the energy to feel sorry for themselves, they're ok

Agreed my OH has to feel really ill not to be up with the lark so I cut him some slack.

I did not know that about the different reactions between men and women. Thank you!

Colds can make me feel proper nasty too

gamerchick · Today 19:48

ProudCat · Today 17:41
I used to work in the health service. A woman doctor was annoyed that her husband doctor had 'man-flu'. He died 2 days later. He really was ill.

gamerchick · Today 19:48
Boy who cried wolf. If they didn't make such a song and dance about a cold we might take them seriously when they're really ill.
-----

Well aren't you just lovely @gamerchick!? 😡

Something for ye MNs to consider in future perhaps, before berating your OH for being seemingly 'too much' under the weather due to a cold or flu

Funnily enough, the guilt trips don't work.

Boy who cried wolf. If they didn't make such a song and dance about a cold we might take them seriously when they're really ill.

It’s really hard when men are sick and “can’t” do anything, while women have to carry on when we feel like garbage… There has been some research that suggests something in our biology makes it so that men genuinely handle even minor illnesses worse: something to do with women needing to survive illness while pregnant or something, I don’t remember exactly. I’m choosing to believe that rather than my DH is just a shitbag letting me cater to him and DD while I’m suffering the same degree of illness.