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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder what people think of those shielding now

201 replies

Flamingofolie · 17/05/2020 10:52

I've seen the shielding mentioned negatively 3 times this morning. What do you think, they get preferential treatment? They're just doing as they're told? It's just an excuse to avoid work?

To clarify I'm talking about those who have been explicitly told to shield, not people who have decided to do so of their own accord.

OP posts:
BeyondDreamsOfBeyondFourWalls · 17/05/2020 19:42

Ah fuck :( hope first thing in the morning is soon enough for you, and it doesn't get any worse in the meantime

Original poster
Flamingofolie · 17/05/2020 20:03

Perhaps, you should think about how isolating it is for those people you know who have to isolate?

Sorry, is this aimed at me? When you say isolate, do you mean shield? I am shielding.

OP posts:
Original poster
Flamingofolie · 17/05/2020 20:04

Oh no clientq that's a total nightmareFlowers

OP posts:
Potentialmadcatlady · 17/05/2020 20:41

Honestly the thing that upsets me most is some peoples horrible attitudes.. this is hard enough without having to listen to nasty crap from some people. My circle of friends will be considerably smaller going forward.
It isn’t a game of shielding top trumps. Shielding isn’t something my family are choosing to do just because we are a little worried or anxious. We are shielding to keep my teen safe and alive. The shielding letters don’t make easy reading...

SteeperThanHell · 17/05/2020 21:12

@iVampire do you mind me asking which leukaemia you have. My husband has CML - not yet in MMR. We aren’t getting much from his consultant.,

Original poster
Flamingofolie · 17/05/2020 21:15

It isn’t a game of shielding top trumps.

Preach. In terms of doing it best, your reasons for doing and whether you're doing it without moaning. None of it matters.

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TheGonnagle · 17/05/2020 21:27

If we have to keep going after 30th June I think I might just professionally lose my shit. I know, objectively, that staying in isn’t the end of the world and that it’s for my own good. But I feel like I’m losing my mind sometimes....

iVampire · 17/05/2020 22:10

Hi Steeper

I have CML as well. I’m guessing your DH is on imatinib? It took me the full year to achieve MMR, and then almost immediately crept up just out of it. and bumped along just in the wrong side of the threshold fit a while. Then they switched me to a second line TKI, and levels falling again. I get my next set of results mid-June, and am really hoping it’s the magic 0,0something

Sorry to hear that your DH’d consultant isn’t communicating well. What sort of issues are concerning you?

SteeperThanHell · 17/05/2020 23:05

@iVampire yes he’s on imatiinib.

Currently 18 months in to treatment and crawling slowly towards to the level he should have been at in early December. 0.4% at the last test.

He’s desperate to go back to works and seems fixated on going back at the end of June - although realistically I don’t think that will happen.

I’m a HCP but in the very fortunate position that I can work mainly from home, but I will have to get back to patient facing at some point.

The info I’ve read is so mixed regarding CML patients and his consultant is saying nothing. My biggest concern is the children going back to school and the risk that poses. Hoping to speak to schools next week and discuss the government measures outlined for shielded patients who live with children who are attending school.

WinstonWolf · 17/05/2020 23:19

I had no idea that people had such terrible attitudes towards the shielded until I read that garden centre thread.

It really upset me (my teen had The Letter).

ravensoaponarope · 18/05/2020 02:03

I think it must be awful for them to be trapped at home.
Any rhetoric about their not deserving NHS beds/ventilators or whatever is disgusting, in my opinion.

BossAssBitch · 18/05/2020 09:33

I don’t have any negative feelings towards those shielding, quite the contrary; I feel a great deal of sympathy towards them Flowers

Original poster
Flamingofolie · 18/05/2020 09:50

Just spent some time on the garden centre thread, thankfully the awful posts are in the minority.

There does seem to be a misunderstanding that we should shield for the greater good though Hmm

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Thisdressneedspockets · 18/05/2020 10:27

None off my close family is in the shielding category, but I have a lot of empathy for people who are.
I want shielding people and their households to have full employment protection and to ensure access to food and any other help they may need.
I would hope they will soon have more information about disease spread, so that they might risk assess whether they can get outdoors.

Aragog · 18/05/2020 10:50

Shielding and social distancing shouldn't be a competition.

Aren't we all, ultimately, tying to do our best to avoid ourselves and our loved ones from getting ill, or worse?

And ideally, helping others around us - who may be more vulnerable than ourselves - to get through it too.

Why we need certain posters trying to out beat one another over who can do it best I've no idea.

It is not a competition!

Original poster
Flamingofolie · 18/05/2020 10:57

I want shielding people and their households to have full employment protection and to ensure access to food and any other help they may need.

This is the dream.

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saraclara · 18/05/2020 11:11

It's bizarre ( and really depressing) that rather than having sympathy for those struggling with pre-existing conditions, people see them as a threat.

Sh05 · 18/05/2020 11:45

My mil is in the shielding category and my father in law in the vulnerable one so both are following the guidelines. They only go out into the small garden they have, my sis in law has been doing all their shopping mainly and they've always had their meds delivered so that's no different.
They declined the food boxes as they didn't need them and also the volunteers help that was offered to them. They've never had a delivery slot as they see it to be unnecessary.
The most challenging for them has been not having the grand children around when normally they'd have seen them multiple times in a week.

Welshmaenad · 18/05/2020 12:58

I am supposed to shield, but I am not. I have opted to continue working (mostly from home but does involve some work outside the home). I've made this decision to protect my income and career, my mental health, and the wellbeing of my children. I had a long discussion with my consultant about my decision and he was able to offer me a lot of reassurance (backed up by actual science) that o may not be as adversely affected by Covid as initially thought, though I am still more likely to actually catch it than your average person. Whilst he couldn't officially overrule the shielding letter, he knows me very well and said he trusted me to make my own choices.

Therefore the opinions of the underinformed and overrighgeous - and there have been soooooo many - are irrelevant to me.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras · 18/05/2020 13:19

I think unless the government make it compulsory for employers to protect our jobs and our incomes many shielding people will have to go back to work. We just won't have any choice.

MaureenMLove · 18/05/2020 13:43

I got a shielding letter, due to autoimmune condition. I'm not entirely sure I'm at any more risk than anyone else tbh, but my doctor deemed me at risk enough to kindly add me to the register, so it's the least I can do to follow their instructions as much as possible.

I have been out for a walk most days. I live alone and was thrown into this situation just 4 weeks after I moved into my new house/life.

I go out very early in the morning and I don't see a soul. I don't need to touch anything between the inside of my own front door and returning from my walk, so for my own metal health, I feel I've risk assessed going out well enough for myself.

I did find the free food box very handy for a couple of weeks, until I managed to get a reoccurring supermarket slot, but I've cancelled it now, as there's just no need for it for me.

I sincerely hope I don't get a letter extending my shielding for another 12 weeks. That'll really knock me for 6. Although I work in a school, so I guess even if I can't go out, theoretically I can be assured my job is safe until September at least.

As for what anybody else thinks, I'm not the slightest bit bothered. People who know and care about me enough, know I'm not a shirker when it comes to work and I'm fiercely independent, so in fact they are more likely to tell me to do as I'm bloody told rather than question why I'm in this group!

onlinelinda · 18/05/2020 14:54

I am in official shielding and was from the beginning. I only walk too. I was sent a text to say a food parcel was on its way that very day -I didn't request it-and, funnily enough, it never arrived anyway. I was called once by the shielding team a week later and told them i needed no help or financial support and that my daughter or son could shop for me. Shielding also does not affect my means of employment at the moment. Round here at the time the food parcel included squash and all sorts of unhealthy stuff which I would not have used, although I see online from others that does seem to have changed.

I think anyone resentful of those in need are petty bettys. And more importantly, not bloody doctors!

BlahBlahYapYap · 18/05/2020 16:35

@SpooniesAreGo, fantastic post.

The Multiple Sclerosis shielding letters have been a shit show. For those who don't know MS put us into the vulnerable group and a few of the disease modifying drugs pushes us up into the Shielding group because of the immunosuppressants used in them.

In the on line community I've spoken to 100's of people with MS and its been a lottery of who has received the letters. Its ridiculous.

Anyway, I've been Shielding since early March (as have my DC) have only gone outside once - for a monthly blood test (which has now been arranged to be done in my home). I'm lucky that I have a lot of very good friends who live near by and will do anything i need doing.

I'm taking it all very seriously, however I have 'broken' one of the rules, which I think, as an adult I'm entitled to do and will continue doing as I can't imagine us Shielders being allowed out much before September.

I work full time and am working from home.

iVampire · 18/05/2020 16:54

@SteeperThanHell I’ve PMed you, so we don’t send this thread down a different rabbit hole

iVampire · 18/05/2020 17:03

But in a more general note, I have teenage DC, both of whom are living in pretty full on isolation so I do not have to isolate myself from them in the house.

I have no idea what’ll happen come September (not in a year group that will go back before then), I suppose I will have to start isolating within the home

Unless there is some sort of breakthrough by then - maybe plasma treatment will work?

Or as DS has the most horrible lurgy - typical symptoms and anosmia, even before anyone knew that was a symptom - in late Feb, maybe we’ve already had it? It was perhaps a bit too early in the outbreak. But if he had it, there’s a good chance DD and I did as well. Though of course there’s no telling how good or how durable immunity is. But if I had some, then perhaps it might be less of a risk to cohabit with someone going to school