Dh said he doesn’t need to remember I’m allergic to penicillin

[Coppery]

yesterday my health got brought up with dh and I said I’m allergic to penicillin. Dh acted all surprised even though I’ve been in hospital before and it’s been brought up several times at various appointments and I feel like he should know by now (together 15 years)

he said he didn’t need to remember one specific drug, doctors will work it out and he can say it’s the one everyone is allergic to. We travel a lot so we’re not always in developed countries either which worries me now.

i said he surely he can just remember it as that’s better. He said he can’t help not being able to remember everything and he won’t be remembering it and that’s that.

Aibu to be pissed off that he apparently won’t bother remembering one drug I’m allergic to?!

‘I wont be remembering it’ is a really weird thing to say, as it’s not like he can make himself not remember! Surely after this conversation about it the likelihood is that it’ll stick in his mind?

Get a bracelet.
Change your contact in his phone to DoAWheelie Penicillin Allergy 💖

Ask him what his point is in refusing to commit this to memory. It's one important, and quite broad piece of information that could be really valuable (there are many types of penicillin. You're not asking him to specify).

Records glitches and human errors happen in hospitals so him having this to hand could save you taking something you shouldn't if already incapacitated. And yes, 'perfect storms' like that can happen.

Hospitals abroad won't have a record so will be reliant on a history or medic alert. Not sure what his issue is but it's your ultimate responsibility to make your allergy known.

This is wilful stupidity.

Absolutely not OK and I can't understand how anyone would think it is! A penicillin allergy is one of those that you're most likely going to be administered incorrectly when you're not able to advocate for yourself, as opposed to a food allergy where you will know to check yourself.
Outing but a family member of mine was in hospital (the hospital they in fact worked in as a medical professional) and despite their end of bed notes saying they were allergic to penicillin, their red hospital band alerting to it too, they were given penicillin in recovery and died. You can't rely on a medic alert bracelet to be enough, especially if you're in places where medics wouldn't think to check, because it's not practice to wear a medical alert bracelet. Your husband can and should be finding space in his brain for this one important fact.

This isn’t about your allergy.

He’s telling you that he doesn’t care about you, and won’t be devoting any headspace to something quite important about you, medically. He’s holding that power over you, and that fear that something might happen one day, and he won’t stop it.

Get HIM the bracelet. He's being ridiculous. Or get it tattooed on him ?

@Littlemisscapable good idea. Matching bracelets sounds even better come to think of it :-)

Well, no, it's not the same. This is information that could stop his wife from dying, it's pretty much the most important information there is. To make an active choice to 'not remember' is a really cunty move on his part.

I don't think I could stay married to someone who has said they refuse to remember information that could kill me.

Wow, he sounds like an absolute arse. I bet if his boss asked him to remember one vitally important piece of information he’d be able to. If he genuinely wanted to remember - you know, to make sure his wife DIDN’T DIE - then he’d make a note somewhere on his phone and take it seriously. It sounds like he’s not that bothered and doesn’t really see it as a real issue.

He has decided he can’t be bothered to remember information that could save you life and actually told you? He’s basically saying that he can’t be bothered to care about you.
This isn’t about the allergy. It’s about his attitude towards you - and it’s not good.

I'd be tempted to get Siri to set a calendar reminder everyday at 7am, 1pm, 5pm and 11pm for him 'Remember Coppery is allergic to penicillin'.
I'm pretty sure he'll be able to remember for ever after only a few annoying days.

YANBU. My DH is allergic to it too, I can’t remember where I left my keys or glasses, but can remember that. Even my 6 year olds remember he’s allergic to it. Probably not the word penicillin, they’d say good guy army that’s yellow colour medicine that tastes like bananas, then start blabbering on about pen something or other.

So do you literally remember everything you try to remember? As I said, there are some things I just don’t seem able to remember such as some peoples birthdays, my bank account number, some passwords etc. It’s not that I haven’t tried to learn them several times, but I just seem to have a mental block for some things and they don’t stay. I think sometimes it’s hard if you have associated something else with the memory too, so for example I have a friend and I can never remember if her birthday is June or July partly because I always second guess myself, so I will think June and then think oh no, I always get it wrong so it must be July, but then think I have tried to remember so maybe I was right with June and I’m never 100% sure. I could see this being an issue with something like a medication, thinking oh it’s penicillin, no wait, is it paracetamol? It’s the common one, but wait is paracetamol more common than penicillin? This is the kind of overthinking I get into when trying to remember a lot of things! You can’t make yourself remember if you don’t remember, you can try but ultimately if somethings forgotten it’s forgotten and there’s not much you can do other than try and learn it again, but even then if it won’t stick it won’t stick or if you don’t feel completely confident in your memory you can’t feel confident. An allergy isn’t something I would want to get wrong and I know as soon as I started second guessing something like that I would definitely not want to be relied on! It would be much worse for the husband to get mixed up and confidently say paracetamol is the allergy and penicillin fine than to say she has an allergy but he can’t quite remember what it is.

If he's going to be an arse stick an allergy bracelet on and take ownership of it. I honestly can't believe in an emergency he wouldn't remember now.

It's not really hard though for him to just state 'don't give her penicillin'. DH takes loads of medication, I don't know the name of it all. However I do know where it's all kept and a rough idea of what each thing does. When I go out for a run I wear a band with DH's details on and that I am hard of hearing just incase I'm run over or something.

So he can't be bothered to remember something that could potentially kill you?

And if you were to become ill, injured or god forbid die when he could have easily prevented that, he'll do what? Say oops, oh well?

I'm not kidding when I say this would be relationship ending for me. I do not understand why women stay with men who literally don't care whether they live or die.

Is he afraid of the responsibility? Sounds like a total prick move either way

I've been married over 30 years and my husband still doesn't can't that I don't eat strawberries because I am allergic to them. Is it that hard?

I do remember most things I try to remember yes. If I was having problems I would find a way around it. For example, if you confuse penicillin with paracetamol, I would also remember that the allergy is to an antibiotic so I could say "they are allergic to an antibiotic beginning with p" . They would guess it was penicillin and it would at the very least alert them to look carefully at the records.

Yabu. If push came to shove he'd remember
.

How do you know you're allergic to Penicillin? Many children were diagnosed wrongly as allergic, including me, as they used to give it out for virus' and then you would get a rash but it was just a viral rash.

I would either get a medic alert bracelet or carry a card in you wallet/phone case with this information plus when you travel to non English speaking countries have the information in whatever the local language is. Carrying a translation of medical information can be lifesaving in some cases.

What a knob.
get yourself a medical bracelet

I don’t know about the Op but it sends me into anaphylactic shock, so it’s a bit more than a rash!

So if you had an accident abroad and got knocked out, he'd somehow expect the doctors to know/find out that you were allergic?

Are we married to yhe same person?
Every time I mention it, it seems to be a surprise to DH.
I'm also allergic to bees and wasps but he denies that because I've not been stung in the time we've been together (21 years) and often says he'd like to live somewhere where he could have a beehive! He says I'm miserable because I don't like the idea!