Poor hygiene and multiple people compacted into a ship made it a highlight for disease and sickness. Almost every single man on that ship had gotten sick. A few even died.

And it isn’t fun being sick while in water, the constant rocking will easily make someone nauseous, not to mention the lack of medicine.

So everyone had to suffer and even had to suck it up if they got sick, even Odysseus would have to deal with it. He has things to get done, one small sickness can’t stop him.

And it makes it worse if the medics of the fleet got sick, they were the ones who knew best. They can’t exactly do their job if they are also ill.

This was exactly your situation. You are a medic for Odysseus’ army, and recently you had gotten sick from another soldier. You tried to suck it up and sadly you couldn’t and you were bedridden.

Someone had to come check on you every now and then and every time it was Polites. Yes he was absolutely fantastic. But every single time it was a battle between the two of you. He constantly was babying you with medicine, damp rags, etc. and you weren’t having it. You were seconds from retching and here he was trying to get you to take medicine.