Girl at work reckons she has a stomach bug

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Joe90
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19 Mar 2019, 11:56 am

Last week this girl who I work with felt sick but she reckoned it was due to a hangover and dehydration. Fair enough. Then she had 2 days off (Thursday and Friday), and was back on Monday. I asked her if she was OK, and she said she has been sick on and off last week and still feels like s**t today, and then she added that it was some sort of stomach bug.

I started worrying, because I work with her, and if she still has the bug (if it is a bug), I worry that I might catch it. I was ill with flu a couple of weeks ago and had to have a week off, and I lost money. I don't want to lose any more money by having more sick days. A stomach bug isn't the same as flu (I didn't have a stomach bug).
This girl isn't very hygienic, and she unintentionally coughed in my face without putting her hand over her mouth. So if it is a stomach bug she's had, I have no chance of avoiding it now, if she coughed in my face, have I?

Stomach bugs take 2 days to start showing symptoms, so if she coughed in my face yesterday at about 7pm, I will probably start puking up tomorrow at around 7pm. I have an extreme phobia of vomiting, so I don't quite know how I'm gonna handle this.

I'm hoping it wasn't a stomach bug she had. She does drink alcohol and doesn't eat a proper diet, so I'm hoping it's just dehydration and low nutrition that caused her to feel sick for a week.


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Fnord
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19 Mar 2019, 12:51 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Last week this girl who I work with felt sick but she reckoned it was due to a hangover and dehydration. Fair enough. Then she had 2 days off (Thursday and Friday), and was back on Monday. I asked her if she was OK, and she said she has been sick on and off last week and still feels like s**t today, and then she added that it was some sort of stomach bug. I started worrying, because I work with her, and if she still has the bug (if it is a bug), I worry that I might catch it...
There may be no need for concern at all, unless you're eating her lunch. That's because most "stomach bugs" are actually some kind of food poisoning -- either the food is spoilt or there is some ingredient that causes discomfort or illness.



dragonsanddemons
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19 Mar 2019, 1:47 pm

Fnord is right, it's quite possibly something she ate that made her sick, in which case she isn't contagious at all. I think also that a lot of the stomach bugs that aren't food-borne are spread by contact, like with surfaces an infected person has touched or something, rather than by air like a cold or flu. But in any case, I'm sending lots of anti-microbial thoughts your way. I too dread getting stomach bugs (although it's diarrhea I'm really afraid of getting rather than vomiting, for some reason), so I completely understand that.


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Fnord
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19 Mar 2019, 1:50 pm

I keep some hand-sanitizer at my desk and I use it whenever someone complains of having caught any kind of "bug".



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19 Mar 2019, 2:43 pm

Let's not forget the chance that even if you caught the bug, your body might be stronger against it than hers and battle it off without you really getting any symptoms. 8)



DanielW
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19 Mar 2019, 2:47 pm

Fnord wrote:
I keep some hand-sanitizer at my desk and I use it whenever someone complains of having caught any kind of "bug".


Lets just hope that Joe90's co-worker doesn't try and ingest it.



Last edited by DanielW on 19 Mar 2019, 3:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Joe90
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19 Mar 2019, 2:52 pm

Well today she reckons it wasn't a bug, it's just her digestive system. She's on strong antidepressants, but she drinks alcohol, so that might be to do with having an upset stomach (I heard you shouldn't drink too much alcohol whilst taking antidepressants, particularly not on an empty stomach). Also she has a habit of switching boyfriends, so there might be another reason why she's feeling the way she does....
But that's none of my business.


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