When you're sick, do you try to be as unobtrusive and uncomplaining as possible?

I’m too sick too often to not complain. If I didn’t complain ever, I’d a.) lose my damn mind and, more importantly, b.) not get the help I need. I used to try to put on the brave face all the time but unfortunately the brave face makes it look like you’re not hurting as much and will get you put lower on the queue at the ER. I express my pain and needs honestly now, but I also express my thanks profusely. I think it’s an appropriate balance.

I do what I need to do and feel what I need to feel and am very glad not to live with anyone who is critical of the way I am sick.

I cough and sneeze incessantly to infect as many people as possible.

I know it sounds critical, but his carrying on is flat out ridiculous. He groans every time he stands up. He blows his nose loudly and wetly, every couple of hours, right there in the middle of the living room. He sneezes and coughs and doesn’t cover his mouth. Then he groans after every event. He just can’t make it any more obvious, or he would. If I offer him something to help, like some warm tea and honey, he refuses. I quit offering years and years ago.

He lists off all the details of where he aches. He started in last night about how bad his throat hurt, all the way up to there, and I said, “I know. I have the same cold.”

He has deep vein thrombosis. It landed him in the hospital for a week once. He’s taking cumadin, but he needs to see the doctor regularly and refuses to go. He’ll sit there and show me his ankles, “See how swollen they are? Look at that!”
“Uh, yeah. Go to the doctor! I can’t help you!”
But he refuses.

Both of us being sick led to some serious hilarity last night, though! We’re both stuffed up and congested, so my speech isn’t as clear as it usually is.
Rick has some hearing issues, even on his best day, and the congestion didn’t help.

I did quite a bit of detailing in the house, having fallen behind because I’ve been working for the last 5 weeks. I was really tired, and this evening, Thursday (Thanksgiving evening,) in the middle of watching “Forrest Gump,” out of the blue, I suddenly said, “I’m not washing the sheets tomorrow.
”He said, “What?”
I said, “I’m not washing the sheets tomorrow!”
He said, “Well, Let me know how that works out for you. They aren’t playing tomorrow.”
Took me a few seconds to process his apparently off-the-wall, totally unrelated comment. Then it hit me, and I swear, if I’d been standing up I would have fallen down! As it was I just fell over on the couch and started CRYING with laughter, my face buried in the pillow!!
He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. I finally got enough breath to ‘splain, and then HE fell over! But with no pillow to catch him, he has a headache now.
So he won’t be watching the Chiefs and I won’t be washing the sheets! (Yeah, like I’d EVA pull rank on him watching the Kansas City Chiefs! Just like he’d NEVA pull rank on me about watching NOVA on Wednesday nights. That’s how marriages work.)
Best Deaf Husband EVER!
Oh, my stomach hurts

Same as @Mariah and @janbb.

Yes. I usually just like laying in a dark place and try to sleep it away if possible.
However, a head cold that makes sleeping impossible may make me whine a bit as I get crankier from not being able to sleep.

I’m a mix of not complaining enough and complaining too much. I don’t know the right balance. If I’m sick with a cold or flu or something temporary like that (usually temporary) I barely complain. If my husband is home I’ll ask him for what I need, but I’m low maintenance. I move into the guest room (or living room if there is no guest room) so he is less exposed to the germs, and deal with it for the most part myself.

When I have something that is an ongoing chronic type thing I mention it when someone is going to make it worse. For instance, when my muscles were very bad I didn’t say much except when my husband was going to try to massage my shoulders or press against my calf and I would pull away or stop him, because it would hurt and possibly cause a charley horse. It sucks that he forgets, because men seem to hate when you pull away from their physical affection. I understand, but I also think it’s pretty obnoxious to feel rejected when really you should be apologizing for forgetting my discomfort and pain.

My last time I was in the hospital I should have complained more. They missed doing a whole bunch of things they should have. Incompetence.

When I am sick I prefer to be left alone in my misery.

I understand that people are just trying to help but at that point it is best just to beat a hasty retreat and leave me alone or at the most give me the meds and retire as quickly as possible.

I’ve stayed in bed Tuesday and Wednesday because of this sodding flue. Looks like the one your hubby got. Barely recovering now, 5 days after the first symptoms.

I try to be low maintenance. There’s no point in complaining or freaking out.

When I am unwell I tend to keep going and not complain. If it gets worse I take to my bed and try to sleep it off without bothering anyone. I don’t take medication and my health is generally very good.

I am never sick, one of the many benefits us in the elite class have over you lowly peasants.
I mean, there was that one time my shoulder hurt a little, but my butler swiped that chip right off.

It’s not a flu, @olivier5. At least not by my definition. It’s a cold.

@flutherother Yeah. When I was working temp jobs for all those years, substitute teaching, etc. I didn’t have PTO or health insurance. I just tractored on through.
Then when I finally landed a good job with all of that, I was utterly shocked at how much more quickly a cold, or whatever, went away when I was able to sleep and rest!

I’m almost never sick either @ucme. That’s one of the benefits of my age. I’ve had every dang cold and flu virus there is, and subsequently developed immunity to them, except apparently I’ve never had this one! Other husbands bring their wives trinkets and knick knacks from their travels. My husband goes to DC and brings me back a brand spanking new Rhinovirus!

@Dutchess_III What’s the difference?

^^Flu is can’t move out of bed, body aches, high fever (usually over 102, I don’t know the Celsius equivalent) cough, no congestion. Not being able to function usually lasts about 4 days and then starts to ease up. Feeling still weak can last a good 1–3 weeks depending on the case.

A cold often starts with a sore throat for 48 hours, then there is a lull, and then switches to very congested. Sometimes there is no sore throat at the beginning. Little to no fever (under 100) although young children sometimes get fever with everything, but adults don’t get a fever with a cold. Colds usually people can still function, although they may prefer to stay in bed. Certainly rest is recommended when you’re sick. Colds typically last a week start to finish.

Colds are caused by rhinovirus, flu is caused by the influenza virus.

Anyone who talks about going to work while having the flu, 90% of the time didn’t have the flu. It’s truly difficult to get out of bed.

Right. What @JLeslie. Vomiting non-stop too. A flu will take a wild, energetic teenager down! A cold just slows them down a tiny bit.

I’ve had the flu probably 5 times in my life, but not for decades now. This one time I was about 14. I was on the couch, dozing on and off. Mom had left and I was alone. The phone rang. Back in those days you screamed in frustration and rage if you couldn’t get to it! I jumped up to answer it, and promptly lost it and hit the floor.. I literally had to crawl back to the couch and pull myself up. THAT’S a flu.

Another time my boyfriend was visiting and he started vomiting. Mom gave him a ride home. On the way back she said, “Mark the hour. In 24 hours you will get sick.” And I did.

All three of my kids went down with the flu once. It started with the middle kid. 24 hours later her brother went down. It was like dominoes. They only got out of bed to crawl to the toilet to throw up.
My middle kid had a bathroom off of her room upstairs, where 2 of the bedrooms were. She was very possessive of that bathroom. NO ONE ELSE WAS ALLOWED TO USE IT!!! However, at one point she saw her brother lying on the floor in front of her toilet, because there was no way he could make it all the way to the downstairs bathroom, and she said, “Oh, poor Chris. He can sleep on my bathroom floor if he wants.” THAT WAS THE NICEST THING SHE EVER SAID!!!
And then my oldest, who had actually moved out, came down. She came home and I put her to bed too.

A cold is just a lot of sneezing and coughing and sore throat and itchy and you can still go to work.

Ah okay, thanks @JLeslie. Grippe vs rhume in French. I had the flu aka influenza.

When I’m really sick I just want to be home alone and lay in bed and watch TV or play on the computer. Last time I was sick like that I think I binge watched The Tudors.

@olivier5 Americans do use the word flu incorrectly all the time. I gave you the technical difference, but bunches of Americans have no idea.

Also, we do say stomach flu, or 24 hour flu, for a 24 hour stomach virus. Just to confuse things more. Stomach virus has nothing to do with the influenza virus.

I am rarely ill but when I am I want to be left alone…......silence and no one touching the bed.

@JLeslie Thanks again. One of the reasons i hang out on English-speaking boards is to improve my English so i appreciate.

Well, a 24 hour flu is a LOT like a flue, only it only lasts 24 hours. It’s what my kids had, when they went down like dominoes, collapsing on the bathroom floor. In spite of dealing with it all, I didn’t get it, because I already had it, back in the 70s.

The last time I was sick enough to actually take to my bed was in 2004, I think. It came on on Friday evening. I didn’t have insurance so I wasn’t about to go to the ER. But I was super sick. No vomiting, nothing like that, just sick. I stayed in bed the entire weekend. In fact, Saturday morning, when I realized I was going to be there for the duration I thought, “At least I can live in clean sheets!” and changed the bed.
Monday morning I went in and told them I thought it was an asymptomatic UTI. I said I’d had one about a week and a half earlier, and thought I’d taken care of it myself, the usual way.
Turns out I was right. I didn’t have the symptoms any more, but it was a bacterial invasion of the body snatchers none the less.

Oh. Wait. That wasn’t the last time. The last time was in late October 2012. My husband had gone to Vegas on business. I was sick. I’d BEEN sick, for weeks, but kept down playing it. He left on Sunday, and I went down. I didn’t get out of bed for the next week, although I don’t remember it.
He got home on Saturday night, took one look at me on Sunday morning, and rushed me to the ER. They took Xrays, got the results, and threw me on an ambulance to Wichita.
I always wanted to ride in an ambulance, and I’m pissed that I can’t remember it!

^^I disagree, they are not similar. Most adults don’t throw up from the real flu. The 24 hour flu is all about throwing up.

Children get all racked from almost any illness. They get fevers, vomit, and all sorts of mess. They cough hard and can throw up when an adult usually wouldn’t. They have their organs all close together and their immune systems aren’t as developed yet.

Throwing up because you coughed hard enough to trigger the gag reflex isn’t the same as vomiting because your body is trying desperately to rid itself of the disease.

I’ve had both flues, the 24 hour one, and the week long one. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on how similar they are or aren’t.

Well, I live by myself, so “ain’t no use in complainin’”. I just try to take care of myself and get plenty of rest. One nice thing, however; the cats always seem to sense when I’m not feeling well and spend more time snuggling with me, which is comforting.