Firstly, I'm sorry if this post comes off as harsh, I'm in a cranky mood because I'm feeling awful right now from this mornings chemo session, but your post provided a spring board to vent about something that's been bothering me. And to clarify, my next tangent isn't strictly related to your post entirely, since it came in a topic I started directly talking about this subject, it's that I didn't ask for medical advice in the OP but received it that made me think about this:
My sickness creates large, bloody sores on my body that are visible, and good god the number of strangers who will come up to me in public and offer unsolicited medical advice is one of the most annoying things about all of this. Again, not singling you out because it was done in a topic where I was specifically talking about my illness, but when it's done in public it just reinforces to me that my sickness is visible and that I look terrible and it's noticeable. I'm already really self conscious -- doubly so now that my hair has started noticeably falling out -- so those kinds of comments just tell me inside that yup I look pathetic. But even more so, what is frustrating is that I live this 24/7, and I have multiple doctors that I talk to about this. There is simply no way that a stranger who isn't a medical professional is as informed about what I'm going through without experiencing it themselves. Because for every glancing video they look at on youtube that catches their eye, I've sat and read countless more articles and such on the subject. It's not something that is interesting to me, it's something i'm dealing with and thus have a vested interest in that fuels my research. The vast, vast majority of the "advice" people give me are the most basic things you could hear about such sicknesses -- because that's exactly what they are, surface, easy to find information that has bubbled up to the top of public discourse. Like, "change your diet" is the absolute very first bit of advice I heard from my doctors *4 years ago,* if I'm already resorting to chemotherapy I promise you someone has already told me that perhaps things in my gut can be affecting my body.
Again, just using your post as a jumping board because this happened to me sunday while I was grabbing dinner and it put me in a sour mood. I hate how often I'm reminded in public now that I'm sick and can't blend in. I hate the countless times I have to fake a smile while some stranger tells me "advice" that I'd already heard years ago. I hate that if I cut them off and tell them I'm not interested or that I've heard it before, they snap at me like *I'm* the asshole. That's actually how the situation resolved sunday, I had to tell the dude at pizza hut that I didn't want to hear his homeopathic bullshit spiel while my food was getting cold because I straight up didn't ask, and the guy started cussing me out for not wanting his "help." And that's actually happened multiple times. Really, really frustrating.