"I've been so ill" 🤧 -PLEASE stop doing this!

[amoreoamicizia]

I'm sitting here with painful lungs coughing up phlegm all because on Sunday afternoon someone came up to me specifically to inform me how terribly ill they'd been, while bright red in the face with streaming eyes and still very clearly ill. And yes, I do know that I caught it from this person.

Why? Just why?

Anyone that knows me knows I am waiting for a non-serious but very important operation. Now if the opportunity comes up this week I won't be able to take it, not to mention that it's just very unpleasant and inconvenient to be ill.

I'm just sick of people who do this with literally no thought for others. I'd never dream of approaching someone while I'm heavily ill just to tell them how ill I am. It's like a child who only thinks of themselves and what they want to tell you!

I totally agree with you op people can just be so selfish sometimes. Yes in public you can be exposed to anything but show a bit of common sense and keep your distance from people when heavily symptomatic with a nasty dose of something.

There is no way of knowing the op has a cold. The symptoms of Covid, influenza and various colds are so similar the only way of knowing what someone has is by testing. People can have mild symptoms or even be asymptomatic with “proper flu”

Wear a mask when you go out and you won’t have this issue. People go out with colds all the time it’s life and you need to get over it

A mask lowers the risk but doesn’t remove the risk so a statement like “won’t have this issue” isn’t correct . It’s important for people who are unwell to also be mindful of other people when out and about.

This has always mystified me too, OP.

Obviously people should be respectful. But unless this so called person went over coughing , sneezing etc they clearly didn’t do it on purpose.

Also there's increased risk with recently having had COVID for instance and surgery. There was specifically the need to wait 6 weeks prior to surgery when I had an op. Now infection control and public health has gone AWOL but all the airborne infections are rampant.

Were you wearing a mask for your urgent visit out OP? You do realise germs, viruses are airborne too? There’s so much going around atm, you can’t really say for definite it was this 1 person you caught it from.

You've got a stalker OP

It's not being a stalker to use the functionality of the site

Sometimes a fuller picture is useful for context when replying

It seems obvious that the OP should wear a mask but maybe there are more factors at play here

I’m with you op. It’s totally selfish. I would never do this to someone else. People travel on buses very unwell and it’s so awful. I’ve been very ill myself so I totally get your point

I think it was inconsiderate to go up to people just to say how ill they were. If you are sick and have to go out, either wear a mask, or stand clear of people where you can, and avoid touching things with grubby hands unless you've used sanitizer first.

I had that horrible cough that has been going around and missed going to my craft groups, bellringing, and church for weeks to avoid passing it on to the many elderly people who are also members. A lot of them are in reasonable health but a nasty cold in a 60 year old could be a serious illness for an 82 year old.

As someone with compromised immunity, caring for elderly DM who is frail, I totally feel your pain OP! Especially as colds nearly always turn into something worse for me too. Why must people do this? Get well soon.

Op’s post is a useful PSA—people should stop being assholes and cover up if they are sick. I am in the same boat as OP—surgery scheduled for tomorrow—and have been very careful to avoid getting sick. I mask outside and avoid seeing family ir friends. Why? Because I must have this surgery, and I can’t afford to have it put off.

So instead of tying yourselves in knots to find a way to blame OP for the rude snd antisocial behavior of her fellow humans why not just take the information in and resolve not to contribute to the general collapse if civilization by being selfish and spreading germs?

Or perhaps OP is justifiably anxious because her health is genuinely precarious? There's a big difference between that and exaggerated/unnecessary health anxiety which is what you appear to be trying to imply OP has.

(OP, I'm not trying to speak for you as I obviously don't know your health details. But as someone who gets justifiably worried because my health is very patchy for multiple reasons, I do feel the notion of 'health anxiety' gets misapplied sometimes.)

It's so frustrating, just stay at home when you're ill! We've just had to take time off work because a family member couldn't possibly so everyone else got ill too

Because, quite simply, we all still need to live our lives!

Yes, but there's going about one's business outside the house while doing one's best not to infect other people ... and then there's getting right up in someone's face the way OP described, while still symptomatic and possibly infectious. The latter just strikes me as breathtakingly thoughtless.

Please read correctly. Nowhere did OP say the person came right up to her face - she said came up to her - there’s a difference. The other person could quite simply have been on her first time out since being very unwell and was happy to see a familiar face “oh Doris I’ve been so unwell … lovely to be out/see you, blah blah” .. OP is the one who made herself vulnerable by going out and not covering up herself. Germs are airborne fur goodness sake. Expecting the whole world to stay inside until they are 100% free of any minuscule of germs is utterly ridiculous.

I did read correctly, but I'm not sure you did, since you're claiming she expects 'the whole world to stay inside until they are 100% free of any minuscule of germs'. Why do these threads always degenerate into all or nothing instead of sensible compromise?

I'll accept 'right up to her face' might have been overstating things. However, OP's post definitely implied that she was closer than it's healthy for someone to be while still recovering from an illness, and she was complaining about the approaching, not that the other person was out and about at all.

Sorry OP but this will have been in your system for 10-14 days before you became ill. So it very definitely wouldn't have been the person you saw the other day

Same here OP i take full blame for venturing out to the local pub, but I'm sick to death of sick people coming out and coughing over everyone and then bringing down the whole friendship group with a virus as they can't just stay home!

It's actually one bloke in particular he can't "not" drink so he will come out when he's really sick.

So selfish just stay home.

In with the OP here, people are so inconsiderate it's shocking. Ended up with surgery twice during my pregnancy because of people not caring! I'm with you OP!

Expecting the whole world to stay inside until they are 100% free of any minuscule of germs is utterly ridiculous. This part of my message was in response to @pikkumyy77 , which is why I quoted their post.