Influenza hit our house big time this past week. It started with my husband on Sunday right after the Superbowl. (And no – it didn’t have to do with who won or who lost.) Fever, cough, vomiting and aches. Within fifteen minutes everything in the house was contaminated. On Wednesday it hit me at work. I had too much going on to leave early and when I did get home I had to take him to the doctor and then pick up prescriptions so it was 8:00 p.m. before I got to kick back and try to rest. Over the next 3 days I got a clear vision of how men handle sick different than women handle sick (at least in my house). Just a few examples follow.
When I am sick I want to be off in a dark room by myself with no noise. When he is sick he wants to still be in the middle of everything, spreading his germs around and making sure everyone knows he’s sick.
When I’m sick, I do whatever I can to feel better. If I have a headache I take an aspirin. If I’m nauseous, I will nibble on a cracker or sip 7-Up. When he’s sick, I literally have to tell him to take something or deliver it to him and stand and watch to make sure he takes it.
When I’m sick, I know I will eventually get better. When he’s sick he is sure he’s dying.
When I wake up at night coughing, I will slip out of bed, tiptoe into the kitchen and take cough syrup. I will sit in my chair by the fire until the cough is under control before I tiptoe back into the bedroom and slip quietly beneath the covers where he is still sound asleep. When he wakes up at night coughing, he just coughs – and coughs, and coughs. I finally tell him to get up and take some cough syrup at which point he flings off the covers, sits on the edge of the bed shaking it with every cough, and then tromps out of the bedroom. He will take the cough syrup, spend a few minutes in the chair by the fire and then come tromping back to the bedroom where he flings back the covers again, plops down and pets his dog for five minutes, shaking the bed with every pat – the bed where I am now wide awake.
And here is the classic He Sick-She Sick difference. It happened this week. I put out a plea to my daughter and daughter in law to see if anyone could bring some homemade chicken noodle soup by to help us stay nourished. He went to the grocery store to find something he could “keep down” and comes home with a dozen glazed donuts dripping with chocolate frosting!
Right now, I’m sitting at work sipping tea and writing this. He is home eating donuts and waiting for me to come home and tell him to take his pills and use the cough syrup.
Addendum to this post: I’m not trying to make you think he’s not really sick because he is. And I will be the first to admit he is a lot sicker than I am. I’m just saying He Sick-She Sick, two different things entirely.
And I am chanting Romans 12:12 “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
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Until we got this pup a year ago. Our old dog had died and while I would have been content not to deal with dog hair and drool for a while, my husband really, really missed his dog. So, we got Chopper, a 6 week old Blue Heeler, freckle faced and fit-on-your-lap adorable. For some reason my heart decided to bond.
