KITCHENER, ON – A local office worker who completely misunderstands how chronic illness works has reportedly told her chronically ill coworker to “get well soon!”
Linda Campbell, 53, sent the message to her colleague Kayla in an email requesting Kayla complete work tasks while off sick. Completing work, Campbell reasons, will empower Kayla with the positive thinking necessary to overcome her debilitating physical symptoms.
“I’m just a natural problem solver, you know?” says Campbell, who sent the full email asking Kayla to change a single digit in a shared spreadsheet. “Kayla’s been having such a rough time lately, I figured simply instructing her to get better would change everything.”
The colleague in question, Kayla Thomas, 34, was off sick with a particularly bad flare of endometriosis, or, as Linda refers to it, “just period cramps.” In addition to endometriosis, Thomas suffers from PMDD, PTSD, and a collection of disparate symptoms her medical team has dubbed FIWK, or “fuck if we know.”
“I know Linda means well. But does she know that words… also… mean things?” asks Thomas who, in addition to “chronic”, has described her illness to Campbell as “untreatable”, “incurable”, and, “it’s not fucking going away, Linda.”
“Truly nothing grants me relief from my debilitating symptoms like constant reminders that I will never, in fact, get well,” says Thomas, reading Linda’s follow-up email – an invitation to her completely inaccessible office party where Thomas won’t be able to eat, drink, or do anything.
Despite her instructions to “get well” failing to cure Thomas, Campbell remains confident in her healing powers. Other extremely helpful medical advice she has doled out over the years includes telling her migraine-stricken neighbour to take Advil, telling her niece with a panic disorder to “just not worry about it”, and recommending her cousin with Celiac disease stick to whole grains.
“I’m basically a doctor,” says Campbell, who Thomas agrees is about as helpful and attentive as most actual doctors.
At press time, Campbell was reportedly incensed to learn that the co-worker she told to “have a safe flight” had died in a plane crash.
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