Posted: Nov 21, 07
4:55pm
Last week my colleague died. I talked to him (at work) on Wednesday and he died early Friday morning of pneumonia. When I saw him I asked how he was. I said "You don't look well." (He didn't). "I've got this cold," he said, "Can't seem to shake it." We talked about where he might have gotten it (a student) what he was taking for it (antibiotics) and how long he'd had it (more than a week). I told him to go home to bed, something I'm always saying to people, and he said that he would. I never thought he wouldn't come back and that I'd end up giving his books away to our graduate students the next week.
Since then, I've been alternately terrified and furious. A year ago, I had pneumonia myself. Like my colleague, I worked right through it, and because I didn't go to bed I got dangerously ill. I learned from that experience, and my colleague's death was a terrible reminder, but everyone around me seems to have missed the point. I hear coughing all up and down the halls--and in the offices on both sides of me. I've told my students explicitly not to come in sick, and although they're not complaining, like my remaining colleagues, they don't quite understand.
I went to a conference last weekend, and saw a dear friend I hadn't seen in a year. He hugged me, I asked how he was, and he leaned back from our embrace and said "I've got this terrible cold--I can't seem to shake it..." I could have smacked him. I brought his cold home from the conference, but unlike my friend, I made an effort not to share it. I canceled class for two days--something I would ordinarily never have done because when a professor cancels class, 30 people are left in the lurch. In the past, I'd felt too important to stay at home.
Now things are different. I'm really frightened and really angry. The pneumonia I had began with a flu I caught from my husband. We were both sick with the same virus--he got better, but I got worse. The mild cold one person has can become lethal to the person who contracts it from him.
To all the rest of you, no matter how crucial you are to the operation of your workplace, please don't go out when you're sick--if not for your sake---for ours. I always felt saintly when I "played hurt" and dragged my runny-nosed self to the office, but it took a tragic event to show me I was just the opposite.
Whatever you're doing at work isn't as important as people's health. You may be strong enough to withstand your illness, but others may not have your immune system--think of them. While you're "toughing it out" at work, you may be spreading your germs to someone who can't tolerate illness, so if you want to be noble, stay home, drink fluids, get rest, and keep your **** germs to yourself!!!
