Exposure event please help

[lonleyguy]

I am usually very very careful and slipped up badly today I am now panicking very badly and need some help with preparation.

I was just with a old friend I haven't seen for some time. we shook hands when we met and then started chatting. he the offered me a mint which I took with my hand and ate. he then told me his dad was up being sick last night.

I suddenly realised I shook his hand and then ate with my fingers and he could have virus on his hands from his dad.

what should I do and do I now need to prepare for the worst?

I haven't been near the dad who was sick and my friend was fine but I am worried about contamination from the dad to my friends hands and then on to me.... please help I am in a full blown attack and struggling to think or breathe...

[lonleyguy]

Can anyone help?

[paulinek]

I hate things like this, but the thing is, we probably touch loads of stuff all the time that's contaminated but because we don't know we don't worry, but when there's the tiniest most tenuous possibility of us having been exposed we worry for days.

At this stage I wouldn't panic - if the dad was vomiting with something contagious then the son will get ill before you, so as long as the son is ok then you are ok too.

If you did get sick then it would be horrible, there's no denying that, but you would get through it even though you wouldn't believe that is possible at this moment in time.

[Hay]

Hey hey calm down. You're probably overthinking the situation (we're all guilty) and being irrational about it, therefore having a phantom feeling of illness. It's unlikely your friend came into close physical contact with his dad, his dad probably dealt with it on his own. And I'm sure he's washed his hands since then.

How are you feeling now? Keep me posted