When Sick and Tired is Contagious!

Thank your lucky stars that this post does not contain pictures.

Usually I can handle losing sleep and cleaning up after sick kids.  Usually!  However when the sick kid happens to be a beloved spouse… well then,  in that case, it gets on my nerves a wee bit.  Just a wee bit.  Still love the guy.  And seeing that he doesn’t get sick very often I usually let his poor patient routine slide.  Last night however begins my sick and tired story. 

Now as a rule I avoid all negative comments about my Prince, unless it’s referring to his lack of fashion sense.  I don’t see the point in harping on his weaknesses as I probably have a pile more of them than he does.  But at 4:00 a.m. this morning I told him that I just couldn’t pass this blog opportunity up.  And he consented, in fact he almost cracked a smile.  I’m sure he agrees wholeheartedly that he is the worst sick person on the planet.

Thus begins my cautionary tale of the husband that can’t stand SICK.  Poor guy comes home from work complaining of an upset stomach.  Says he feels a bit nauseous.  Which is a warning that he will go around moaning and groaning about how upset his stomach is.  He avoids throwing-up at all costs.  In fact in the 20 plus years of marriage I can count on one hand the times that he has lost his cookies.  Now, if he were sensible he’d let it come out.  You almost always feel better after you up-chuck.  But the poor guy dreads it so much he goes to bed miserable.  And for the next three plus hours I don’t get that much sleep as he is constantly rolling around in bed moaning and trying to get relief only through change of sleeping positions.

Now lest you paint me as the unsympathetic wife of a tortured husband.  He really just had a case of the 24 hour stomach flu,  no appendicitis, or gall / kidney stones, or even hernia.  Just the stomach flu.

Then at 2:30 a.m. he sprints for the bathroom.  And I hear the results before he even left our bedroom.  You would think the guy was being gutted by aliens in a third rate B horror movie.  And I’m clearly surprised that our children were not awakened by his thundering hurling noises (and I’m now told by Lea that she did hear).  You would think he was literally spilling his guts, not just the contents of an upset stomach.  Clearly throwing up only 4 times in 20 years is not nearly enough practice on judging how quickly you can make it to the toilet before the spew happens.  He didn’t make it.

Here’s where the sick and tired becoming contagious comes into play.  I mercifully got up to help the poor soul out. Lets just say he nailed the whole bathroom floor, walls, and whatever else happened to by lying in close proximity.  And as we commented on the dreaded results of him putting off the inevitable, we both came to the conclusion that 4 year old Hope does a better job of hitting the target bowl when sick, than he does.

I get brownie points for sending him back to bed and staying up to clean up the mess.  He did admit to feeling better.  Like Shrek says, ‘Better Out, than In.’  I however doubt that he’ll remember the next time he’s feeling this lousy, say five years from now.

  I didn’t get back to bed until around 4, but by then, the smell had permeated my nose to the effect that sleep was driven clean out of my head.  Dear Prince Erik was slumbering quite nicely. 

He even took a four hour morning nap.  He did mention that he wasn’t feeling too good again this afternoon.  This time I handed him a large Rubbermaid container and kindly reminded him that if he missed the toilet he was cleaning up his mess.  Then I left to go find something meaningful to do in a room far, far, away. 

Meanwhile, somewhere in the back of my head I remember having a conversation with my beloved’s mother years ago after another such incident.  I hear he takes after his dad in this regard.  Don’t quote me as saying that because I’m running on little sleep here.  And I realized just how much better sickies my girls are over my boys.  Is it just mine, or do boys naturally have a harder time making it to the bathroom when sick?  This is not a scientific study that I personally wish to pursue or keep hard data on.  But who is better at being sick you or your spouse?