I've been ill lately. I used to rarely get ill, probably because of my job embalming cadavers for a medical school. Handling decaying bodies on a daily basis was somewhat bleak, but useful for maintaining a robust immune system.
Now I have a son who goes to nursery. As anyone with a child in nursery will tell you, they tend to bring things home; daily reports, little pictures or things they've made for you, and of course a generous selection of horrible germs and diseases.
It's quite nostalgic; most of the bugs he brings home are ones I remember from my own childhood, involving snot, varying coughs and all manner of dribbling. It's a bit like those "I love the 80s" programmes, but with pestilence rather than big hair and legwarmers. It makes sense; you get a large number of humans from varying backgrounds with underdeveloped immune systems in one place, it's going to provide ideal conditions for the constant spread of sickness. Parents then catch these as well.
Ergo, you end up being ill on a regular basis. But as annoying as this is, another issue is that the appropriate way to behave when temporarily ill has gotten somewhat confusing.
It is a time of constant demonising of the disabled and chronically ill and a worryingly over-burdened NHS. If you care about those things (admittedly, many don't) then the thought of adding your own temporary problems to the pile feels wrong. I know I'm entitled to use the NHS, that's the point of it, but when you're regularly told it's strained to breaking point, I'd prefer to avoid adding to the pressure. I'm entitled to use my local park too, but if it was on fire while infested with rabid wolves, I'd go somewhere else for a Sunday stroll.
And even if I did see my GP, what could they do? Prescribe antibiotics? Even that's potentially a bad idea.
The alternative here is treating yourself. We have easy access to cheap medication and the accumulated medical knowledge of human society. Maybe we should just take care of our own maladies? Except this is a dubious practice; those of us who self-diagnose online tend to latch on to the worst diagnoses; if you're already worried enough to check your symptoms with Dr Google, you'll likely display confirmation bias for the worst potential outcomes.
Maybe it's best to just wait it out until your illness passes. Although if you're lucky enough to be employed, this means taking time off, and it's hard to do that without a doctor's note, which you probably don't have (see above). You may get away without one, but is it worth the risk? The economy is a mess, every business is cutting so many corners they're all perfect circles by now, and the news is filled with rampant unemployment and persistent attacks on "scroungers". It's a brave person who's willing to risk their job in these conditions.
I had to go to work despite a particularly vicious head-cold/throat-infection combo recently. I don't have a tyrannical boss, there was just something that needed doing before a strict deadline and I was the only person able to do it. This resulted in me sitting in a communal office, constantly shivering, sweating copiously and making raspy noises. Passers-by were wondering why they'd employed a large amphibian in a shirt and why hadn't anyone returned the clearly distressed creature to a lake.
I know many who have done the same, gone to work despite an obvious and communicable illness, to avoid looking bad to their employers, who encourage this. How many other employees contract their illness due to this and how much this costs in lost productivity is impossible to say, but as long as nobody can directly be blamed for it, then that's fine (apparently).
But if you have to carry on despite illness, at least you can have a good moan about it. Unless, like me, you interact online with many people with debilitating, chronic conditions who constantly have to deal with their consequences as well as the associated stigmas. It's great that there are many channels now that give voice to those who suffer from physical or mental disabilities. On the down side, it does deter me from publicly sounding off about my sore throat. There's the thing about "checking your privilege" nowadays. Is health privilege a thing? I imagine so.
As a man, publicly mentioning being ill means you also run the risk of being diagnosed with "man flu". Man flu, for those who are unaware, is a virulent strain of flu that only infects men. The stronger immune system of men means that they survive infection by this powerful pathogen. If a woman caught man flu, she'd be killed in seconds, so the virus avoids them; a pathogen that immediately kills the host is an evolutionary dead-end. This has led to many women denying that man flu even exists, which is a fair point as it doesn't, but that's not really an excuse to mock someone who is genuinely ill.
Another issue with being a man with a summer cold is that you end up with a lot of used tissues scattered around. As it's less common to have a cold in summer, any visitors you have will jump to "less flattering" conclusions as to the origins of these.
On the up side, if you're a man who wants to engage in constant masturbation but can't be bothered to dispose of the evidence, a head cold provides the perfect alibi for excessive tissue use. Granted, someone could perform forensic tissue analysis (in every sense of the word) and find that your discarded "material" is made up of more gametes than expected. However, if you've gone through someone else's used tissues to see what's in them, it's hard to confront them with this information while retaining a position as the more dignified party.
No, YOU'VE thought about this too much!
As long as chronically ill people don't get the support they need, the economy remains feeble and the health service is strained beyond all reason, the best course of action when suffering from a temporary illness will remain confusing.
There may be a possible solution, though. I recall a barber I went to who told me his local GP was an Auschwitz survivor. People would often see him intending to get treatment for a minor ailment, at which point he would relay some anecdote about his treatment at the hands of the Nazis. Invariably the patient would "feel better" and leave.
Perhaps a system along these lines could be implemented. Maybe the chronically ill could be employed as waiting-room detectives, analogous to store detectives. The job would essentially be to sit in waiting rooms and stare at anyone there. When faced with a clearly sick or infirm person staring directly at them, it could potentially deter anyone who isn't really that ill, thus freeing up GP's time for genuine cases and easing their workload, reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance and easing pressure on the NHS, as well as providing gainful employment for people who struggle to find it elsewhere, boosting the economy in turn.
And thus, all problems are solved in one fell swoop, with the only concern being that it's probably impractical and quite unethical in many ways.
Sorry if this makes no sense. I've been ill.
Dean Burnett prefers to communicate via Twitter, to avoid passing his latest malady onto innocent strangers. @garwboy
