Wow, that's really sharing!

When you have a bone marrow transplant you lose the immunity that you've built up against diseases. Two years after my transplant I was reimmunised against polio, diptheria, tetanus, pneumonia and HiB. This summer I'm going to be teaching abroad for six weeks and I've had a few extra immunisations. One of the ones I had was the BCG immunisation against tuberculosis - an immunisation that I'd had previously at school.

A few weeks later, at a meeting of people who are also going to teach at this English language camp, someone asked what jabs we'd all had. I said I'd had Typhoid, Hepatitis A and the BCG. Someone asked if I hadn't had the BCG when I was fourteen. I said that I had, but I'd had a skin test and I was no longer immune. They said that they'd never heard of that happening - they didn't know it could run out. I said that I'd had a bone marrow transplant a few years ago, so most of my immunisations didn't count anymore.

They responded by practically bellowing, "Wow, that's really sharing! I thought we'd leave all that personal stuff until we got there." And they went on and on about it. I explained that I was nearly five years in remission, was totally healthy, and was able to get travel insurance so obviously nobody expects anything to happen. But they went on and on. I know that this person is loud, but it just seemed a really odd reaction. The tone of their emails has changed since then too.

And people wonder why I avoid telling people.