my parents are both VERY healthy. horses, even. i am VERY healthy. i get sick once a year -- tops. my kids are VERY healthy. they get sick less than i do.

my mom is a nurse, and always was. she worked in hospitals when i was young, and dealt with hospitalized injuries and illnesses. which meant to me, as a child, that NOTHING that happened to me was seen as serious. "go get a bandaid and be quiet." or, "are you throwing up? then you're not sick." my dad had more sympathy for injuries, but for run-of-the-mill illnesses, he was not the person to go to, either. i think he's called in sick for work once in his entire life. (he's 58.)

now that i'm an adult, and even during my time as an almost-adult, i have no understanding of illness or injury. none.

my beloved is sick right now. he got sick on sunday. it is a cold that i came down with my first week of work (the week after thanksgiving). i felt like crap. by the time i got home at night, all i wanted to do was go to bed. i really couldn't, though, b/c there's homework to do, and game night to carry out, and dishes to wash, and laundry to do, you know - life. and i certainly couldn't stay home - it was my first week of work!!!

but he got sick on sunday, stayed home on monday (he was truly very sick -- he had no voice), seemed relatively better on tuesday and wednesday, but then today - he had a relapse, and called in sick again.

and me? the loving, devoted pseudo-wife? uh, no. see the title. that's me.

i am fully aware of the fact that i am very lucky to have the physical constitution that i have. my beloved was not so well endowed, and he had a really nasty bout with pneumonia 10 years ago which made him a little more susceptible to these things, a little slower to improve, and gets hit a little harder.

no matter how much i understand these things, i can't shake the irritation. i KNOW it's not fair. i know that he doesn't choose when to be sick, or how sick to be. i do not think he is faking. i just don't have the DEEPER understanding that comes from experience. to me, you feel a bit under the weather, you continue on about your day, and by the time you next think about it, it's gone. b/c that's what my body allows me to do. not b/c i'm better, not b/c i'm stronger.

see? i understand that. i just wrote it. but i still feel irritated!! and it's not first with him. every person i've been close to, to which i have no blood relation (b/c my blood relations are healthy iron-people like me), i have had this experience with. ex's, best and very-close friends from college, and co-workers.

i wonder how i would ever handle it if one of my kids lacked my physical impenetrability? if they were slower to heal, quicker to catch bugs? would i be a crappy mom to that fictitious sickly child? hmm. i wonder.

and then of course i think .... what would i be like if someone who needed me were to fall gravely ill? i wouldn't want to be this intolerable bitch. i would want to be the person i know i should be - loving, and kind, and understanding.

I do not like the way I am on this issue. i have tried so hard to fix it, but i have yet to succeed.

posted by Zuska @ 8:52 PM

1 Comments:

At Thursday, December 15, 2005 10:53:00 PM, The Marpepps! said…

My family is similar. I once got scarlet fever (I was covered from head to toe in fred) and my mom told me I was making myself break into hives to get out of school.

When I got my surgery, she was supportive and tolerant every step of the way. It was never even a question. She still gets irritated when I get a cold.