This is gonna be short and sweet. Because… yeah. Our dwelling place has been cursed with a Moste Fearful Illness, and I have a lot of icky messes to clean up now.
Joey does not do sick well. I do not do sympathetic well. We discovered this on our honeymoon, the majority of which was spent in the teeny-tiny room of the cruise ship… watching an endless loop of Flicka, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift, and Switch. Motion sickness and a cold are apparently not a good combination, and I realized that I was going to need to grit my teeth and be sweet and patient, that my husband is a man who needs a lot of babying when he is ill.
When I am sick, to make matters worse, he delights in taking care of me… insisting that I not go to work, checking in frequently to see if I need anything, making sure I rest. I’m not used to that – I may complain a good bit (okay, a LOT) but I also feel very strongly about sucking it up and getting through what needs to be done. I actually take horrible care of myself, and do not rest well if there are things left undone, no matter how bad I feel. So he balances me out, which is totally the theme of our relationship.
Which also begs the question, do I follow his nurturing example and be incredibly sympathetic, because after all, people tend to do what they want done themselves in a given situation. And I could certainly benefit from being more sympathetic. Or do I balance HIM out and encourage him to push through a little bit? I get the jerk role in this little balancing act, I’m pretty sure.
The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.
I hate that he feels bad, and I did everything he asked, and checked to see if he needed anything, and rubbed his back, and washed his face with a cold washcloth, and helped him get a sub this morning so he wouldn’t have to work, and said a lot of “I’m sorry, baby.” But 48-ish hours into whatever weirdo bug this is (the flu?) and I am wearing thin. It is also hard to commiserate with someone who thinks they may be dying because they haven’t kept anything down for a day, when I just spent three months not keeping anything down, and managed to keep TWO people alive in spite of it.
Sometimes I think I have no heart. Sometimes, probably Joey thinks so, too. But it would be a lot more often if I didn’t save up my snarky thoughts .
Also, McLovin is sick. Do dogs catch sicknesses from people? Because this seems to be a stomach malady as well… I have to throw a bunch of blankets (off of OUR BED) in the washer now, because she had an Incident. And then I have to go throw McLovin in the bathtub, because she is currently walking around smelling like an Incident. And then I should probably roam the house, discovering all the little messes that I’m sure have happened while I’ve been at work.
Sigh.
So sorry you guys are sick! You are so nice to your husband. Mine gets what he gives which is nothin’. Sorry, that’s 14 years and 4 kids talkin’. Keep on being kind to him, soon enough you’ll be throwing all that love toward someone else and he needs to store up some love to live on.
My dog always catches my husband or my cold. One night I had him coughing on one side of me and the dog coughing/weezing on the other. (the dog is a huge baby when he is sick).
Don’t worry, I don’t baby my husband either. I tell him to get up and do something – shake it off.
Sorry there is an epidemic wreaking havoc in your lives….but I do thank you for stopping by….and I’ll be back…hopefully when you aren’t sick …
Ha – I’m not much into the sympathy either. My husband’s a wuss so I pretty much just get him what he asks for when he’s sick and then I just ignore while he sleeps entire days away. When we first got married he always wondered why he could be sick for maybe a day and feel on top of the world the next, but I am always sick for weeks at at time. He finally gets it – it’s because when I’m sick I don’t have the luxury of sleeping it off.
You’re a good little wifey!