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dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/3crof4N
My coworker is absolutely terrified about Coronavirus.
He’s a big dude, robust and healthy, strong. Maybe 43? Built like a bear. Really pretty sturdy. Lifts heavy stuff, gets the door, that kind of guy.
But he had whooping cough as a kid, somehow– he doesn’t know either, must’ve missed the vaccine or something? Don’t know; his mom wasn’t an antivaxxer or anything. But he had whooping cough, sometime in the early 80s. It happens sometimes.
Ever since, every time he gets a cold, it settles in his lungs, turns to bronchitis. He’s had pneumonia four or five times now in his life. Every ten years or so it knocks him flat, just a cold he can’t shake that settles in and builds itself a palace in his lungs until he’s weak and feverish and flat-out exhausted.
He is terrified of coronavirus. He’s not immunosuppressed, exactly, not chronically ill, generally in fantastic health– great blood pressure, good cholesterol, etcetera. But those scars in his lungs, from the whooping cough– he knows pneumonia will be the thing that kills him someday, we’ve discussed it before. I’m sure he’s not wrong.
So I’m humoring him, as he goes nuts with the handwashing and sanitizing everything in our office. It’s a little annoying because he talks about it all the time, reads me the latest statistics from the WHO, asks me what i think’s gonna happen, etc. I’m like, I don’t actually want to dwell on this, but. He still keeps bringing it up.
Yesterday he finally admitted that his wife suffers from severe anxiety, and he can’t even breathe a syllable of this at home. At the moment, so far she’s oblivious and carefree about it, and he’s like, I can’t let on that I’m freaking out because she’ll freak out and I can’t do that. He admitted he went panic-grocery-shopping and stocked up on everything without telling her; she doesn’t know that he’s upgraded all the soap in their house, doesn’t know the freezer’s crammed full and the basement’s full of toilet paper and canned goods. She doesn’t know. He can’t tell her. Because she’ll worry.
So I’m trying to be kind, and let him worry at me, because I understand. But it’s a lot.
My coworker is absolutely terrified about Coronavirus.
He’s a big dude, robust and healthy, strong. Maybe 43? Built like a bear. Really pretty sturdy. Lifts heavy stuff, gets the door, that kind of guy.
But he had whooping cough as a kid, somehow– he doesn’t know either, must’ve missed the vaccine or something? Don’t know; his mom wasn’t an antivaxxer or anything. But he had whooping cough, sometime in the early 80s. It happens sometimes.
Ever since, every time he gets a cold, it settles in his lungs, turns to bronchitis. He’s had pneumonia four or five times now in his life. Every ten years or so it knocks him flat, just a cold he can’t shake that settles in and builds itself a palace in his lungs until he’s weak and feverish and flat-out exhausted.
He is terrified of coronavirus. He’s not immunosuppressed, exactly, not chronically ill, generally in fantastic health– great blood pressure, good cholesterol, etcetera. But those scars in his lungs, from the whooping cough– he knows pneumonia will be the thing that kills him someday, we’ve discussed it before. I’m sure he’s not wrong.
So I’m humoring him, as he goes nuts with the handwashing and sanitizing everything in our office. It’s a little annoying because he talks about it all the time, reads me the latest statistics from the WHO, asks me what i think’s gonna happen, etc. I’m like, I don’t actually want to dwell on this, but. He still keeps bringing it up.
Yesterday he finally admitted that his wife suffers from severe anxiety, and he can’t even breathe a syllable of this at home. At the moment, so far she’s oblivious and carefree about it, and he’s like, I can’t let on that I’m freaking out because she’ll freak out and I can’t do that. He admitted he went panic-grocery-shopping and stocked up on everything without telling her; she doesn’t know that he’s upgraded all the soap in their house, doesn’t know the freezer’s crammed full and the basement’s full of toilet paper and canned goods. She doesn’t know. He can’t tell her. Because she’ll worry.
So I’m trying to be kind, and let him worry at me, because I understand. But it’s a lot.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-04 04:36 pm (UTC)(Although I don't think I could ever be any level of oblivious to the level of food / toilet roll / soap in the house; hopefully they're all okay.)
no subject
Date: 2020-03-04 09:58 pm (UTC)