What's the most ridiculous thing anyone has said to you?

[chimamandafan]

I occasionally volunteer at a local community centre. It's managed by a woman who tells anyone who cares to listen that she has a medical condition that means she can't eat. She looks well-nourished but I've always been too polite to ask her questions about her condition.

I volunteered at an afternoon event today. I get the seniors to their seats and make pots of tea. Cake was served. The woman who never eats was standing there eating cake.

'Look at you, eating cake! Are you better?' I said. 'Oh,' she said, 'you know me, you know I can't eat because of my medical condition.' 'But you're eating...' She walked off and is apparently really pissed off with me. Apparently I'm rude.

There are some real weirdos around, aren't there?

Peoples responses to my (young) aunts cancer diagnosis were particularly mental.

The responses ranged from her ex husband saying he always knew she would get I’ll young because she had a cold nose, to someone saying they weren’t ever going to get cancer because they eat 5-a-day…

I think she was baffled.

The ignorance surrounding this is astonishing!

There are many medical reasons, including my own, where feeding directly into the intestines (PEG feed) is necessary because of the body's inability to absorb nutrients. This does not stop people sometimes putting food in their mouth and eating it because they're bloody human and lemon drizzle cake is gorgeous. However, if they do eat this absolutely gorgeous lemon drizzle cake it could cause many problems for them including vomiting, diarrhoea, more intestinal disruption, plus much more. Maybe she just thought oh my god this is amazing literally to die for lemon drizzle cake and my human remptations cannot resist. She will not have had any nutritional value from that absolutely gorgeous lemon drizzle cake!

The OP was rude! Just because someone mentions, even repeatedly, that they dont eat doesn't mean they have to explain their medical condition to anybody nor do they have to justify why they broke the rules of their treatment of their medical condition. Keep your nose out OP, it's got nothing to do with you

No, she was non verbal. I assisted with helping her.

You're right, they do - so they can collar all the stingy buggas who try to rush past saying "I would mate, but I don't carry cash" I 😂

I was quoting @@TheLightSideOfTheMoon there, soz for any confusion

Argh, I'm not sure who I was quotjng - apologies for MY Confusion!

I used to live in Scotland, and worked with tourists. One lady asked me for information about 'Southumberland'. When I looked momentarily confused, she said sarcastically, 'yes, you know, that place just below your border? Or do you refuse to give information about anywhere but Scotland?' So of course I quickly twigged, and said 'oh! You mean Northumberland!' She was very huffy with me after that. It wasn't so much her comment that was ridiculous, as it was a simple mistake, but her attitude and belief that I shoup be able to read her mind, and was being deliberately unhelpful.

And of course the very many tourists (in Edinburgh) that asked 'what time does the 1 o clock gun go off at?'

A representative from a notorious company carrying out public work told me they weren’t prepared to record a Teams meeting with residents affected by the work because “it’s a meeting”.

The worst thing was that this person actually does have a child!

I’ve learnt to laugh as you get all sorts. People just don’t know what to say which is fair enough but just don’t say anything!

I got ‘you’re so strong, I don’t think I could do it’. Like I had some sort of choice!! 😂

A colleague who starts every email "I hope you are well" including for the 6 months I was going through chemo.

Explained to the doctor my ailment and she replied,
What do you want me to do about it

That was badly phrased. "How do you think I can help you?" would have been a better way of putting it.

Same doctor after going to her about my insomnia.
I cant prescribe you 15000 sleeping pills

The only treatment a GP can give for insomnia is 'sleeping pills'.

FWIW I hadn’t actually mentioned sleeping pills

You didn't have to.

Same Doctor on asking for the 1000th time could she refer me for an allergy test.

There is no such thing as allergy tests. You can’t take someone’s blood and say what they are allergic to.
(didn’t mention anything about having a blood test)
I explained that maybe they were called patch tests. But I was told that I should go away and try stuff and if I had a reaction then don't have that thing again.

That was a reasonable answer.

Unless you have some idea what substance causes the problem it's an impossible task to discover what the irritant is.
No Dermatologist is going to spend months putting every substance on God's green earth on you just to see if you get a reaction.

Surely you have some idea what gives you a reaction? Soap, wash powder, cats, dust mites, metals, etc etc??

^Same doctor after going to her about my insomnia.
I cant prescribe you 15000 sleeping pills^

The only treatment a GP can give for insomnia is 'sleeping pills'.

I'd assume the issue OP had with this was the quantity being bandied about rather than the concept. And as you say, if the only treatment that can be given for insomnia is 'sleeping pills' then the GP could prescribe them.

My doctor refused to give me anything to help me sleep. Just told me to keep going until I fall asleep really

GPs are reluctant to prescribe 'sleeping pills' as they can become addictive.
There is always the danger of accidental overdose eg someone waking up in the middle of the night, and not remembering if they had a pill and then taking another one.

What you need to know about gp’s is that no one in the nhs likes them.

Consultants look down on them because they didn’t stay the distance or have the talent to be specialists.

The allied professions have no time for them because of the rubbish decisions we see day in day out. They are so tiresome to deal with. No one complains they have their own staff rooms because at least their contained during lunch or you don’t get a break from them. They’re in a shit sandwich with no bread and extra shit. They get it from all of us.

They are not going to get struck off. GMC very rarely strikes a Gp off. They behave as a lot of people would if they knew they had tenure.

I had this from a seemingly intelligent woman after I came back from maternity leave and had negotiated a job share (and the only way I could get it was to accept a demotion, the fuckers, and that was after months of negotiation.)

"You're jammy aren't you" she said to me one day, and not in a nice way.
"Why am I jammy?"
"Working half your hours and still get your pay"
"Hmm I work half my ours and get HALF my pay. Oh and half the holiday leave too... half any bonus we get. Half"
"Nah that's not how it works. You get full pay. Jammy cow."

Nothing I could say would make her change her mind. And she wasn't very nice anyway so I used to come in and walk past her saying "look at me, swanning in, jammy cow."

She went went on to head a department. And until the day she left she maintained I got full pay on part time hours.

Not quite a 'mean' thing to say but my mam died suddenly from cancer when she just turned 50.

Whenever it somehow comes up (like the person delivering the funeral flowers or when we had to probate) lots of people reply (quite cheerily oddly) with 'my mam died recently too' and it still strikes like a dagger and leaves me silent.

I know they are trying to sympathize but these people that keep doing it are all OLDER themselves than my mam was (all have then mentioned their kids are in their 20s so their kids are not much younger than me) meaning their mams must have been OAPs just by simple math.

I'm sure its awful to lose a parent at any age, so I'm sure they are still in pain I'm not trying to take that away from them (and I'm sure they are not in any way trying to be insensitive) but it feels more inevitable that a parent in the 80s is at risk of dying rather than one thats just turned 50.

It was just me and my mam growing up, I have pretty much no family left, my kids who are pre-school wont get to know their Nan at all. So no I don't want to casually and chirpily chat about out shared motherless existance.

RiftGibbon my insomnia was menopause related and I was hoping to discuss what I could do but like always she went off in her own little world and made up in her mind what she thought I had said

It is exhausting going to see the doctor as it takes at least 3 or 4 attempts before they will actually listen to you. You come out of your appointment and have to book another one because they have clearly not understood why you are in there.

Someone (friend of a friend) once told me that he'd had Parkinson's disease for a couple of years in their 40s,but he'd had now recovered.

I was at Victoria Falls in Zambia. An American woman was flabbergasted because she had "never seen it rain upside-down before".

What made it funnier was when her husband explained it was just a massive amount of spray coming up because of the force of the waterfalls and she exclaimed "Nooooo, don't embarrass me so loudly, it's rain, spray water isn't wet!" and marched off, putting her umbrella up and her grinning husband shouted "ya'll need your brellas upside-down guys".

A friend said that one of her work colleagues who lost her dh unexpectedly to a heart attack apparently on seeing her husband in his coffin at the funeral she commented how the holiday they had recently taken and his new healthy eating plan was really working as she hadn’t seen him looking so well and so relaxed

Friend staying for the weekend. On the Saturday my DH became very ill, agonising abdominal pain, was blue lighted to hospital, diagnosed with infected gall bladder. We had some oldish ham in the fridge which I intended to give to the dogs. Saturday evening friend ate it, even though I told her not to. Sunday morning, friend very sick, claimed to have caught DHs infected gall bladder.

I think this could be forgiven for grief rather than stupidity

I work in two surgeries in an allied hp and I actually really like the GPs we work with!! They are extremely helpful and kind. Maybe I just got lucky. Oh, and we share the (tiny) staffrooms too

In fact, that's what every allergologue I've seen or heard of does. They prick test, usually on the back, with a number of common allergens and see whether there is a reaction.