If you're ill, stay at home! Ranty post

[Thatisall]

This will be the third xmas in a row that my dh and I have been ill. Magically dd has avoided most of our lurgi.

Last year it was my df who infected us, visiting on xmas eve in a right state saying he hadn't eaten and barely slept for three days, that the doc had been out to him, it was that bad.

We said "oh df, you should've stayed at home, we would have seen you when you're feeling better". To which he responded that he fancied getting out of the house.
Cue Christmas morning and both me and dh are soooooo poorly. I manage to make dinner but we hardly eat and then fall asleep while dd plays. We're ill for 4 days to the point where dd had to be looked after by relatives.

The year before it was my dsis bringing chicken pox into the house. I have no issue with chicken pox parties but maybe not at xmas and without prior warning. She just turned up and said, "guess what we've got the pox". DH gets shingles and dd got chicken pox for the second time.

This year dsis used my hairbrush on herself and her dc and then announced that she'd spotted a couple of headlice on them the day before! I have thick curly hair

About 10 days before Christmas we had friends visit unexpectedly, which was lovely. Then I got ill, really ill, I had the worst diarrhoea I've ever experienced. I couldn't work and had to cancel parties and planned visits. When said friends heard they said "oh yeah we've had that it's nasty, still not shifted it and we've had it for two weeks"....meaning they were ill when they came to our house! (I did think we'd gone through alot of loo roll!)
The worst part is that they went hospital visiting that week too!

Now thanks to the 'compromises to my immune system' I've picked up a second, very nasty infection.

I won't be able to take part in NYE celebrations with my family and I still haven't been able to even see all of them because I don't want them catching this awful bug. I've lost so much weight and now my hair is starting to fall out. Again...said friend said this happened to them too.

I'm not saying that you should stay in bed with every sniffle and I'm all for soldiering on, but there's a difference between that and being thoughtless.

Are you poorly?
Is it really horrid?
Do you think it might be contagious?

Yes?

Well don't go and pass it to your nearest and dearest then! Do the right thing and stay away until you're better!!

Grrrr.

fudge my father lives with his wife and my sister, he is very young, not even 50 yet , works full time and didn't mention to me when he arranged to come round that he was ill. There are no issues with mine and df's relationship, I dislike your comment very much.

As for the shingles thing: I have been told by one doctor that shingles isn't 'catching' if you like, but certainly when dh had it , we were told it was highly contagious and not to attend work. So there are discrepancies there. I am not a medically trained person but regardless, I would not bring chicken pox into a household without forewarning.

In response to the comments about infection source: of course you cannot pin down where specifically you picked up a virus. I think this is inconsequential really, my point is that you haut shouldn't risk it, if you have diarrhoea you shouldn't go and visit someone without telling them. I think that is simple logic. Whether or not that was the definite source is open for debate, whether or not it was inconsiderate to risk it being the source is not.

Agree in general but in some workplaces and some job roles it isn't as simple as just taking a few days off if you feel under the weather, especially if you are somebody who is prone to these bouts of minor illness a few times a year. Very easy to put yourself to the top of redundancy hitlist that way. Obviously for the norovirus and serious illnesses you shouldn't risk infecting others though.

I'm in bed at the moment with sore throat, ears and cough, and so many people are telling me to try to get out tonight for NYE. I think I should stay home but am feeling guilted into going out. They make me feel like a martyr for staying away sigh.

I completely understand the difficulty when it comes to work. When dd started nursery, she caught everything and as a result I often came down with the same things. You can't just keep calling in.

But I do think visiting people's homes is different, especially at Christmas. I'm not just a bit sickly, I was almost admitted for dehydration, I'm really not well.

Agree in general but in some workplaces and some job roles it isn't as simple as just taking a few days off if you feel under the weather, especially if you are somebody who is prone to these bouts of minor illness a few times a year. Very easy to put yourself to the top of redundancy hitlist that way

Absolutely. If I have a minor illness no way do I feel I can stay at home. We've had two rounds of redundancies in two years and just about everyone feels the same. While I generally have a good absence record, I've had, over the past year: one surgical procedure requiring a day off to recuperate, an operation requiring in hospital admission, and a bout of sciatica so bad I couldn't stand, let alone leave the house. Those have put me on a stage 1 absence review and a single day off before the end of March will escalate it. Not going to risk that.

Visiting people's houses is different and doing so when possibly infectious is anti social.

Trouble with going into work when ill is that you can put several other people at risk unintentionally. Someone may have a relative at home who is elderly or immuno comprised or suffering a life threatening issue. I was looking after a relative with end stage cancer and a viral infection or mild illness as some people call it, put her into hospital on a ventilator

Totally agree. My elderly grandmother is a in remission from lung cancer and has heart problems yet everyone goes to visit her when poorly, getting I'll could kill her. I get the same, friends come to visit me and say, I've got a terrible sore throat - I'm a singer so sore throat = no income. Dickheads lol

YANBU at all about ill people spreading their illnesses.

But....

Shingles doesn't spread shingles. Someone with shingles can pass chicken pox onto someone who hasn't had chicken pox, but it isn't airborne in that case (so if someone has shingles and covers up the blistery patches, they shouldn't pass it on).

I read that shingles results from low immunity. The chicken pox virus lurks within your body once you've had chicken pox and when the adult is susceptible/low immunity it can spring back as shingles.

Someone with chicken pox can't spread shingles. Only chicken pox.

At least this is what I was told and found out when a friend had shingles and when the dcs had chicken pox (different times).

clara proper dickheads given the nature of your work!

What Pooja says. It is not possible to 'catch' shingles at all - it's a reactivation of a dormant virus. You can however catch cpox from direct contact with uncovered shingles rash, which is why your doc said about avoiding work. You wouldn't have caught flu from your dad either - or not on his xmas eve visit - incubation too short.

On the general point though, YANBU. The lice thing is really daft. Sometimes I swear people just don't think.

Or pooka even

Our sickness policy has changed at work, we now automatically get a written warning if we've had more than x sick days in a rolling 12 months. So yep you feel like you have to go to work if you are ill fortunately there is still management discretion so any chance you're still contagious with D&V and he'll tell us to stay at home!!! Not all managers are so sensible though.

DH's office has a dire gung-ho macho rrrraaaggh attitude to sickness. Everyone struggles in. So it's no wonder that much of the time everyone is struggling with sickness/illness!

And don't get me started on the idiocy of attendance awards at primary school. If my dcs are ill I keep them off. DS2 had chicken pox before Christmas last year and missed every good thing happening. This year it was hand foot and mouth. :(

MissPixie

It boils my piss tbh - we only found out secondhand; they've had all and sundry round and quite a few of the family are now down with it. One of their dgc is immuno-compromised, and they just don't get how serious it is

I understand. My DD has underlying health conditions so a normal cough to us could ( and has ) land her in a hospital bed for a couple of nights. The Norovirus was horrible. I'm a single parent of 2. We all just fell like flies with it. I vividly remember crawling up the stairs with excruciating stomach ache to get to DD who couldn't keep off the toilet and having to shout down to DS who was crying with the same stomach ache that I would bewith him asap :( I've seen children having chemo ending up on drips because they've caught the D& V bug going around and their body has no strength/resources to fight it off.

On the other hand it could be argued that herd immunity is beneficial to immune suppressed individuals. If their immediate family and their contacts have immunity the vulnerable individual is less likely to get ill and there is only one way to get immunity to many bugs. For example, my cousin is having chemo at the moment and would be in a far more dangerous position had her DS and DH not had their share of bugs already.

I'm not saying that taking a bad cold to a family gathering just before Christmas is right but there are two sides to the argument.

A colleague came in with a streaming cold at the start of December. Coughing and sneezing everywhere. Within a few days I had it. It went to my chest and I have had bronchitis, still coughing like a drain. DS2 (age 2.5) has a tendency to chest issues and has been hospitalised every winter so far. It's been miraculous but he has avoided it this time despite catching the cold, we were able to manage his wheezing at home. I am so annoyed when people spread their disease. It happened when DS1 was small too. A stupid woman brought her kid to a party with chicken pox, bragging about how tough they were and how it's great to spread it so everyone gets it young. I was a single mum and had my university finals the following week. Luckily DS was fine but it could have ruined everything for me if he had caught it through her stupidity.

I think some people actually want to give it to others, I have had to ask several colleagues at work to stand back when they have very bad colds etc and some of them come and stand right next to me

And don't jump to the conclusion that someone who is coughing is spreading germs. When I get a cold it typically lasts for two days and is followed by a fortnight of catarrh. I'd soon get my P45 if I stayed at home till the catarrh had cleared.

ProudAS- I don't think it quite works like that with non vaccinable illnesses. If my close family and contacts catch something, chances are they'll pass it on to me, usually in that window where they don't know they are ill and infectious. Herd immunity works with vaccines because the vaccinated people can't pass the illness on.

Also, many of us with compromised immune systems aren't at home or hospital or otherwise isolated from other people. So you can't form a protective ring of immune contacts.

I take immune suppressing medication for my Crohn's. A lady at my work has had an organ transplant so takes immune suppressing anti-rejection drugs. Someone else is on high dose steroids. We are all immune suppressed, yet the drugs are making us act well, so you wouldn't know to look at us.

There's no sure fire way to avoid spreading an illness (unless you live in one of those protective bubbles). However, coming into contact with other people unnecessarily when you KNOW you are ill is selfish. If you're bored at home, try a walk round the park where you are unlikely to come into close contact with anyone else, not visiting someone's home or baby group or soft play etc!

Sorry to hear about your problems ChronicallySick.

I'm not saying its impossible for my cousin to catch something from her DH or DS but she'd be more vulnerable had they not got immunity to some strains of the common cold.

For example, suppose her DS was accidentally exposed to a cold at college. Someone who gave him that same strain previously would possibly have done her a favour.

Hear hear OP. I'm 39 weeks pregnant, and have a cold and chest infection, thanks to some dirty germy bastard coughing all over me on the bus. Vile. STAY AT HOME. If i have to go into labour feeling like this, I will hunt you down and make you lick my newborn's nappy.

Hmm. Fair enough to say for social visits, going to softplay, etc that people should either ask, or stay at home. We were all ill this Christmas, & asked my DM if she wanted to avoid us. She opted not to.

But I honestly think that expecting nobody on a bus to have a cough, ever, is unreasonable. For that matter, at that stage I got exposed to plenty of bugs waiting in GP surgery.

YANBU

Its really selfish and annoys me. You just don't know what other people are having to go through so to deliberately and knowingly spread illness is inexcusable.

i remember living in fear of DD catching something, bad enough worrying about the unavoidable colds etc, and having to cancel her operation.