I don't want to get unwell

[Idontwanttogetunwell]

I had a planned lunch yesterday with two friends, one of whom travelled quite a distance to join the lunch. The local friend turned up with a virus. Sore throat, headache, aching all over etc. Her reason for not cancelling was that the other friend would have had to cancel her train and not get a refund. Well, she clearly wouldn't as she could still have come and had lunch with me! I'm just so pissed off as I am going to Florida next week and I do not want to be ill with a virus. I know I could pass anyone in the street and catch something and I am not germ phobic usually but I just think it is inconsiderate to meet up with friends when you are clearly feeling very unwell. AIBU?

I understand. My son is immune suppressed. I let all my friends know to let me know if they are sick so I can stay away. If a friend of mine arrived and was really sick, I'd just say, "I'm sorry but I can't stay. My son is immune suppressed and I can't afford to risk catching anything right now." It's not easy to do but I have to do it for my son.

The Selfish cow should be asking you if you’re ok with catching a virus before she even thinks of joining.

I hope you at least give the people you will be visiting a heads up so they can choose whether they want to take the risk or not.

For those who’ve said ‘it’s just a cold’, I can assure you that the new strain is considerably worse than that!
Not to mention my holiday being a write-off.

YANBU, to be honest since Covid started I don't plan anything social and mask up in busy places in the lead up to a holiday and I'm lucky to WFH anyway. Hope you don't get ill OP- get some Sambucol Extra Defence.

your life sounds fun

Because I don't want to risk getting sick before a holiday I have spent a lot of money on?

Completely understandable.

I didn't go anywhere for two weeks before the 'holiday of a lifetime'. Way too much put into that to risk it. It was worth it.

I've posted about this before but in 2002 I took DS to a kids party. On arrival there was a woman with a child who was absolutely lit up with chicken pox. She was laughing and making out that she was doing everyone a favour by allowing our kids to catch chicken pox from hers. No prior warning in case anyone really needed to stay away. Looking back I'm surprised the host or venue allowed it. I was about a week away from my final exams at university. I was studying as a single mum to be able to get a better job and life for my son. That thoughtless act could have ruined things for me and had even worse consequences for someone with health reasons to avoid chicken pox. Even now I don't get obsessive presenteeism at work. You can either have someone off sick for a couple of days to rest and recover or you can force them in to do sub par work, possibly make them self worse and infect the entire team. It's absurd.

My mum still talks about how ill my sister and I got when a neighbour brought her daughter round to play with whooping cough!!

Its interesting you say that because it's not something I recognize either. If someone wasn't feeling well enough to go out they wouldn't bu let otherwise it wasn't a thing in my experience

What did you do before covid?

Totally this.
And the threshold for not going was way higher. Of course if you had full on flu, chicken pox or a vomiting bug you didn't go, but I never remember cancelling events or plans because of sniffles.
And I don't now. I am SE so have to work regardless and as a PP said, when you have kids you can't cancel each time someone has something or you wouldn't ever go anywhere!

YANBU.

We had similar around Christmas - SIL let MIL know, but MIL took it upon herself to decide that it would be fine, but not tell anyone else. Cue everyone getting the lurgy, feeling like crap for a couple of weeks. It also meant I didn't see my side of the family for the rest of the Christmas holidays because I didn't want to make them ill, especially DM who gets a bit knocked for six when she picks anything up.

The symptoms op described aren’t just sniffles though are they?

Sounds like a typical cold to me. And she clearly isn't incapacitated or she wouldn't have been able to come and remotely enjoy herself.
'Back in the day' I remember only cancelling if you felt physically too unwell to be there. Sorry but that's how I remember it. Cancelling was for stomach issues or an illness that kept you in bed (or at best on the sofa).

A day or two before embarking on a 3+ week camping and road trip we met friends for dinner. They hugged and kissed us before sitting down and saying they were relieved that one of them was feeling better as he’d had a vomiting bug that morning but was able to pull himself together and come out to meet us.
This was well before covid and at the time I couldn’t understand why he didn’t duck out of a run of the mill social meal to prevent giving his sickness bug to people about to get on a long haul flight. And maybe it’s not important but why hug and kiss us??
We didn’t get sick, which was lucky.

YANBU OP. It’s shitty to do to other people.As for all the ‘we’d never go anywhere’ comments, perhaps there’d be less illness around if people weren’t so keen to spread things. I don’t think things have got better since covid arrived - I think they’ve got worse. Over 3million with long covid in England and there are still absolute morons (no offence to morons) calling it a cold and downplaying it.

Schools are encouraging this attitude though with their obsession with attendance NO MATTER WHAT!!! Your life is doomed if you miss a few days due to being genuinely ill.

99% sure our household have covid at the moment, we don't test but we're not generally a sicky household and this ticks all the boxes. DD (17) has felt really rotten all last week..severe cough, sore throat, banging headache etc etc. I know because I have the same. She didn't go to sixth form last week but every single day has been marked down as unauthorised and they even turned up at our house midweek to check up!! I mean WTAF. They're not even doing anything meaningful at the moment. Surely no one wants to try and contract this off us just before the summer holidays?? Least of all the teachers?

So no you're NBU OP. People are just effing stupid and inconsiderate, encouraged by idiot school policies.

I would say unbelievable but same happened to us two days before Christmas. A big Christmas we were hosting. Friends came round saying that they'd all just had 'food poisoning'. It was too late to shoo them away as they'd already been here 20 minutes and the kids had already hugged each other as they do.

Needless to say we went down like flies with a fierce vomiting bug within 24 hours. We did the courteous thing and warned guests but three still wanted to risk it. 7 of us in total were really ill over the Christmas period, totally ruining it.

Selfish fucking people.

@kemblickthe school thing is dire and nonsensical.

I've kept my kids off the last week before Christmas for the last 3 years as I'm sick fucking tired of at least one of them having a vomiting bug on Christmas day. Funny how none of the kids were sick when they were encouraged/made to wash their hands during covid eh.

My neighbours dying, haven't been able to see them for 3 weeks due to this awful cough/cold that we have. I don't know if I'll ever get to see him again but I just can't take the risk. Heartbreaking.

You can't catch food poisoning, did they lie about why they'd been ill?

Exactly, it was obviously a vomiting bug, hence the single quotation marks as that is what I was bullshitted with.

They should have told you in advance and asked for your opinion. I don't think people should cancel automatically with a virus.