yes, he is selfish.
but the truth is that when I have a cough and my life needs me to keep going, it gets to a point where I don't know that I'm coughing.
when I'm physically low like this I feel only (at least mostly) negativity towards others, along the lines of "now you've brought me down to your level".

how do you have the conversation about values and how to handle illness please?

I seem only able to initiate such conversations when I'm not sick <rolls eyes>.

In fact, I was in a similar situation just one month ago. I was visiting friends and someone wanted to burn incense and incense is the one asthma trigger that I'm sure can land me in hospital. They already knew that I am asthmatic, and I explained that if they want to burn incense I will have to leave the house for the day - which I did. The next day the same person said to me: "but incense is good for you".

I was angry, and thought "you are crazy, absolutely crazy" but telling people that they are crazy isn't respectful so I said nothing... and instead felt crazy myself.

Is holding on to this some sort of identity struggle do you think?