how sick do you have to be before you stay home from work?

(to do what, I'll let you decide)

Anyway, folk who go into work with the cold are anti-social. Keep it to yourselves!

-- mark grout (mark.grou...), May 24th, 2006 3:20 AM. (mark grout) (later)

YEAH, i wish you had told my coworker that the other day when she came in hacking up phlegm and rubbing her infected snot all over every goddamned thing in the office. now it's my turn to decide whether i want to go in to earn my dollars (like she did), or stay home and spare everyone else in the office. FUCKING BITCH.

I go from feeling fine to deathly ill in just an hour or so. This happened to me at work once, and I passed out in the men's room.

no, it was my only to be expected ATP lurgee.

Ugh, muscles aching, hacking up inasties, etc.

I'm telling your boss!

one of the reasons i'm leaving my current job is that the corporate policy actively discourages people from calling in sick -- so sick people come into work and make other people sick, and it's a vicious cycle.

and the whole "excused absence"/doctor's note thing feels so childish to me -- what am i, five?

yeah that's so very dumb. while my last job had its share of issues (cf annoying coworker thread), they really got a lot of things right. we were allotted 10 PTO days (vacation, sick, bereavement - didn't fucking matter. because we are ADULTS) per half year. AND you got more at year 2, 5 and 10, etc. AND they rolled over.

the only catches were that they would rather you not be gone more than 5 at a time (barring long term illness or some other hardships, which were typically dealt with compassionately), and they really liked for you to take a full 5 days of your PTO, all at once, every 6 months.

Thread topic is another item on the list of "things I didn't realise would seem like a big ideological difference until I started cohabiting". Twice now I've felt like a small child pleading w/my mother on a school morning, failed to convince, trudged in anyway out of shame.

(Admittedly I've been basically OK once I got there and dosed myself up on Sudafed all day, but I generally feel that if you might give it to people then you shouldn't be there, and if you feel too foggy-headed to do useful fuck-up-free work then there's no point being there and you're probably dragging it out by not resting. This belief generally results in 1 or 2 sick days a year, sometimes none, which doesn't seem too unreasonable.)

I have two infections or more at the moment and am still in. One's an ear one as well. Deafness is proving useful for blocking out stuff.

If I think a day off will cure me I'll ring in. Often that works.

Not 'work' but did an 8 hour training course today with sinusitis that was bad enough that I could only partially see and was nearly deaf in one ear.

I haven't called in sick for years, though I was sorely fucking tempted today. My ailments were entirely due to heavy weekend's boozing at a stag do in Liverpool though, and they all knew I was going on it, so it would've been totally suss. I just had to tough out waves of nausea and dizziness while trying to teach.

called in sick today, i'm freelance too so i lose 135 quid. been delirious all night and feverish, in bed since i got in at 7 or so yday evening.

and yet i still feel guilty telling my boss i won't be in.

I have been consideringit. But iusually don't get quite sick enoug. Just enough to be sad. Not enough to be out of Action. Coffee gives me power

wait you're supposed to be sick?

weird i started to get delirious and feverish and pretty much 7pm last night too?

luckily my work today doesn't involve thinking of words to write but i'm meant to be flying out to spain on friday and don't know whether i'll be well enough - i def couldn't travel in my current state, is two days gonna be enough recovery time? aargh

nb spain is for work not holiday

Drink lots, wrap up to go to bed, sweat it out...

Worst Terius Nash single ever.

Try a little Irish applejuice

what a weird time of year to be sicked. i'm honestly in a heap...had crazy fever dreams all night, want to gouge my sinuses open with a spoon.

I got a really bad week long flu this time last year.

The one benefit of being unemployed is the added protection from colds etc.

the headache is the worst thing for me today, i never get fucking headaches and this just keeps coming back. lead bricks in my brain.

I seem to know a load of people who've got this in the last couple of days. If I get it I hope I get it soon and well out of the way before Glastonbury.

I have gone to the office with flu symptoms and then two weeks later someone else has it. So I don't go at all! Feel lazy but better to get it out of your system then give it to your whole office!

Other than that, I only call in sick when I'm, like, vomiting. I don't like daytime television. If I get a headache or something at work I take a long lunch hour, take some Tylenol. I love to work!

yesterday's answer: not even a little. just sick of work and people.

oh god i can't fucking swallow now

Because I work for the state, I'm lucky to get lots of sick leave, but I never use it. If I can walk or crawl I'll go to class.

am in agony also...can't muster the strength to get up and have a drink of water, probably should eat but have no food, and flatmate has a friend in the kitchen whom she's loudly regaling with stories of men she has met, "HANDS OFF, HE'S MINE, AHAHAHAHAH OH MY GAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWD" at earsplitting volume. this is what hell is like.

earlier i was shivering under my duvet then i fell asleep and now i'm BURNING UP

"Burning up" is good, drink more water..

does that mean it's passing? i am sweating profusely also. agonising pain in sinuses has now eased a little but i've got that chest crackle which usually denotes chest infection. can't be sure whether it's worth going to the docs to get an antibiotic flung at me.

My wife had what sounds like you guys have got this week. She was off work Mon-Wed, back in today. Just in time for me to be off sick, except I'm not actually sick, I've just scratched my eye and can't open it properly. Which is not good for staring at a computer screen all day. So I am posting on ILX while squinting. Hmm, on balance I probably should just go back to bed...

my boss just emailed me to say i should have let her know earlier that i wouldn't be in...when i actually just waited to see if i was in any fit state. strikes me as kinda stupid, what kind of worker emails 12 hours in advance to say they're sick? surely waiting and seeing shows more dedication? basically told her i am freelance and losing money with any missed days so i am desperate to be in...

I can see where he's coming from - he's suddenly a freelancer down at short notice. But from your point of view - "I'm feeling sick and if I'm still feeling like this tomorrow I'm not coming in" is just asking for him to get someone in instead of you whatever.

Well, if you weren't going in for "need to do something else day" then she's right, but illness is not the same. Obv.

(xpost)

had a dreadful night - aching everywhere, so feverish, bloody headache that refuses to go away, swallowing was agony, kept waking up every couple of hours and not being able to go back to sleep. but the last time i managed to sleep i woke up drenched in sweat and felt much better, relatively.

actually don't think i've been this ill in years and years.

possible tonsilitis definitely an urgent problem IMO

they'll always try and fob you off with that urgent problem bullshit. just tell them you're a sane adult and you're sick and you want to see a dr and fu if u disagree etc.

Yeah, that sign's purely to scare away old people who "don't want to be a bother.."

it's not like i'm dying here

well, true, but if you want to see a doc i wouldn't be discouraged by that. they all do that to stop people who go to the doctor at the drop of a hat. personally i know when i think something will go away and when i think it might go away more quickly due to seeing the doc...

Look if it were an actual URGENT OMG I MIGHT BE DYING case would you go to a doctor's surgery? Of course you wouldn't, you'd go to casualty. Suspected tonsilitis is easily ill enough to count as serious in standard GP terms.

yeah i don't want to see the doctor though! 3 days into an illness seems too soon, i can't face having to trek over there and i don't want to have to make an appt for eg next week when it might have cleared up.

Also, you'd get diagnosed and prescriptioned in less than five minutes, which always cheers a GP up.

yeah exactly...999 is urgent, the "urgent" thing really bugs me. that said this morning they just gave me an appointment straight off.

3 days into an illness seems too soon

No, it's the opposite.

Yeah this, cmon seriously. I mean sure your body may fight it off on its own but why suffer if you can get an idea what it actually is, and get things to help speed recovery?

I'm pushy about this cos my bff/ex went thru a whole year of constant crippling tonsilitis attacks. He ended up hospitalized twice cos he got so sick so often his tonsils just crapped out on him and the only recourse was having them removed - and thats not something they do by default anymore.

my doctor is a half hour bus ride away cuz i never bothered to update my address when i moved house :(

My Doctor is close to my work, for convenient nipping out to have my "old trouble" seen to at lunchtime, but not so good if am barely able to leave house.

my doctor is a half hour bus ride away cuz i never bothered to update my address when i moved house :(

lex changing your GP takes 10 minutes. just go to your closest one and make the change. it's probably too late to get an appointment today but make the change today and an appt for tomorrow morning.

just make sure to bring your old GP's name and address.

i went to the doc and she spent about 5 mins and said i have no infection, and it's a virus of some kind, "sleep a lot and drink water". waste of time but i guess it's precautionary.

http://www.nhs.uk/servicedirectories/Pages/ServiceSearch.aspx

Should tell you if you're nearest GP is accepting new patients.

Cant you guys just go to any GP nearby? You can here. How odd.

no you have "your" GP, where you've registered.

Bleugh! That must be annoying. We have universal healthcare here too, but you can just go to any nearby GP who does medicare claims and its covered.

You can go to any walk-in centre though, not actually sure how many of these there are...

Lex, that fever could get worse all weekend and you might not be ABLE to get help. Go. I hope you already left for the doc, actually.

http://www.nhs.uk/servicedirectories/Pages/ServiceSearchAdditional.aspx?ServiceType=WalkInCentre
nearest walk-in centre - should be at least a couple within a few miles.

no you have "your" GP, where you've registered.

what country is this? In mine, there is only "my" doctor in the way that there is the one I always go to, but I could go to any other, say if I was trying to get loads of different doctors to prescribe me some funny medication.

that's in the country of London. i dunno, maybe you could go to another GP without having registered but I've never tried it.

Was going to say, more than you think! (xpost re: Walk-in centres)

lex changing your GP takes 10 minutes.

bollocks it will, every time i've tried to do this or anything similar it's been a nightmare of phone calls and form-filling. i have a bit of a phobia of this sort of organisational thing, it never ends well.

i went to the doctors, i have inflamed tonsils (i don't know whether this is Actual Tonsillitis) and antibiotics. i actually feel much much better though, strength is back (wed/thu i wouldn't have been able to leave the house at all) and fever is absent - test will be whether it comes back in the evening as it usually does.

I never get sick, except on weekends or one of my six days off each year. I decided to call in sick today so I could recover a little bit from the absolute skull-crushing monotony of my job, only to have my boss incessantly call to make sure I'm "really sick." Which I'm not, but what fucking business is it of his? We've finally hired other customer service personnel because having just one was too much stress for one person to handle, so it's not like we're understaffed (especially on a fucking Friday) yet I'm the only employee he does this to. Eventually, because I'm a terrible liar, I had to admit that I'm not sick, just really stressed out and depressed, and now that's going to be a huge awkward stumbling block for the next week.

My other ulterior motive was a meetup in Philly at 7:30 to see some Chris Marker shorts that I was hoping to make it to, because "having a goddamn life outside my horrible job" is never a valid excuse for leaving half an hour early on a Friday. Never mind that the last chance I had to talk to someone else who cared about this shit was seven years ago and then I was too scared of people to make eye contact; that's not important. I'd better make sure I stay until 6 *exactly* because god forbid there are stray papers on my desk not organized into neat, straight 90-degree piles.

I'm not kidding. He actually cares about that.

i dunno, maybe you could go to another GP without having registered but I've never tried it.

You can go to another doctor and claim you are only staying in the area temporarily and you should get seen, but then they give you a bit of paper to fill in to say who your current doctor is and where you live, and if where you live is already in their catchment area they can get arsey

(I have had this and they kept saying "no, you can't possibly live there and be registered with a GP who isn't us, please fill in your real address" until eventually I just filled in an address I hadn't lived at for like 4 years just so they'd take the damn bit of paper, but this is probably illegal or something so I do not condone it on the internet)

I changed my GP last year...I just went and said can I join please? And they were like sure no problem...you might have to see the practice nurse for blood pressure and pee sample though...I think the thing they are most concerned about is where you live. Postcode lottery [/daily mail}

I had the same changeover experience as Jel about three and a half years ago.

i have inflamed tonsils (i don't know whether this is Actual Tonsillitis)

so i guess it is, and i do have tonsillitis. thanks trayce! i would never have guessed that, and would never have gone to the doctor if it hadn't been for that possibility.

if I have a minor cold, I go in, cuz I don't like wasting vacation days. any type of major headache may be a stay home, but I don't get them often. Our bosses generally are trusting and don't do the dumb 'doctor's note' thing - my last boss though was a bit of a turd about it. I had chronic sinusitis which was causing splitting headaches, and one night I used a Neti pot to clear my sinuses and didn't use it right so I caused a recurrence of said headache. tried to call out and he sounded skeptical on the phone so I came in mid day against my will.

bottom line though if you have a fever, stay the fuck home, cuz it signifies the fever's fighting an infection that you can pass to someone. this is how I got the flu last year :/.

swallowing is just agony, it's like there's a razorblade at the top of my throat (maybe sinuses? i haven't had a sniffly nose at all though), and strepsils have been completely ineffective.

hey lex, hope this doesn't come too late for you, but you can buy dequacaine lozenges over the counter and they are really good at soothing tonsillitis. it's a mild local anaesthetic in boiled sweet form, ie proper medicine unlike strepsils. i got tonsillitis last year, and while my GP was otherwise insultingly useless - he wouldn't prescribe antibiotics because he said it was viral not bacterial, after only conducting a visual examination, presumably with his microscope eyes - he did recommend these which made the experience almost bearable.

No worries lex, I hope you get well soon, tonsillitis is horrid!

the weird thing is i feel basically almost well again (no fever, am active again and not bedbound) except for the tonsils, and even they are not quite as agonising as they were a couple of days ago, so the whole diagnosis/antibiotics came right at the tail end of the really debilitating shit. i shall bear those lozenges in mind if the tonsils act up again though joe...

still feel fairly shit...flatmate woke me up at 1am and i didn't really sleep till about 5am, cos of fever. really need to be better for work on monday. i swear to god i am going fucking ape if i have to back to the doc to get a second diagnosis about this. i've been wrongly diagnosed only for symptoms to worsen or illness to be prolonged about 3 times on the nhs, to the extent that i honestly sometimes think you only get a proper examination on your second visit.

i'm posting on this thread cuz it's where i posted last time, not cuz i have to go into work.

can tonsillitis recur? because i'm starting to get the exact same fucking symptoms i had 3 weeks ago and which i thought had cleared up (took whole course of antibiotics etc etc). i really can't be ill this week!

Lex, go get some chesty cough Vicks or Benylin. Take doses at the recommended times until the bottle is gone, and you may just swerve it. I did.

really? i don't have a cough - i was gonna phone the doctor tomorrow and get some more antibiotics. got the same symptoms as 3 weeks ago, can't swallow + fever. not quite bedridden at least. i didn't know tonsillitis could come back, paranoid i'll have to have the tonsils out or something hassly like that.

my health has been singularly fucked this year, one thing after another :(

Hmm, you might just be rolling over into an unrelated flu. Also, you might want a test for strep throat, something that's omnipresent in America but nobody seems to have heard of here.

Don't FUCK WITH IT. Go back and get stronger antibiotics. Whatever's back there, you didn't kill it and it wants to come back.

This may end in you getting your tonsils out btw.

On the bright side, you get to eat sorbet and ice cream for a few days if that happens. ;-)

feel so fucking frustrated, i have so much i need to do this week and i am not sure i can quite cope.

i fucking eat healthily and eat lots of fruit and exercise and yet this year has been ONE FUCKING THING AFTER ANOTHER

Yes, and it might not get better until you kill off the underlying infection that's weakening your system and sneaking back up on you. So go ask for a stronger round of drugs, and if that fails, look into surgery.

i am definitely gonna do that tomorrow. it just throws a week in which i really needed to be out and about quite a lot completely off.

ironic that i'm posting in this thread as there's nothing that sucks quite like having repeated health issues when you're a freelancer.

so!

been on the phone to doctor. the swab they took last time actually came back negative for a bacterial infection, so they think it's viral and therefore antibiotics won't be effective. nb i don't know what any of that means. she said to wait it out with paracetamol and call them again if it gets worse.

happily overnight it has got better in that the fever has gone. tonsil pain still there but apart from that i don't feel horribly "ill", def not bedridden.

Id a bad stomach sunday night last week and took monday "off" by only checking mailbox twice.

This new paradigm has potential imo

Yes and no, it's easier to take the day "off" but harder to sell an official sick day when you don't have to come into the office anyway

Oh by arrangement, twasnt a sick day!