"So, please stop explaining" --No Doubt

You know how people will insist on telling you their horror stories any time they hear you are in the hospital? This so does not help and I know this and I avoid doing it. Usually.

A few weeks ago my cousin was in the hospital, briefly, for what turned out to be something minor. I called her and she told me what was going on and that she was on antibiotic X.

Understand, 'antibiotic' is a dirty word in our family. I react to antibiotics as do people on both sides of my family. Allergic reactions. Mild to severe. When you start to swell up? That's your body's way of saying, if you keep giving me this stuff, I'll kill you. Thus, I don't take them.

I asked if she knew if she could take X and she said she thought she could because she thought her mother had taken it with no problem.

Later in the day, as I was speaking to my mother about my cousin:

Me: [Cousin] is on X. Wait a minute... didn't you take X when you were in the hospital and then your hand broke out in that terrible rash around the IV and they had to stop giving it to you?

Mum: Yes, I can't take X.

Me: Uh oh. We should tell [Cousin.]

Mum: I was going to call her in a few minutes, anyway. I'll tell her.

And, at my urging, she did call my cousin and proceeded to tell her the horror story of her experience with X.

The thing is? My cousin is on my father's side of the family. Her mother is my father's sister. My mother, as you might have guessed, is on my mother's side. So, my mother and my cousin are not blood relations.

I convinced my mother to call my cousin in the hospital and relay a horror story about an antibiotics experience when it had NO BEARING on what my cousin would experience. I suck.