A Dark Subject

So, today friends we are going to approach a dark subject.

Sick Men

Hence the hearts and flowers and sunshine picture!

Let me start by stating a few facts

that I would like you to remember as I continue this subject line.

Fact Number One

My husband is an expert caregiver.

To me, to strangers, to friends and there was no better son

when his mom was sick!

Fact Number Two

He rarely really gets sick.

Fact Number Three

I would not trade him for anything!

 

That being said,

I would like to relate the timeline of my life for the last

96 hours of my life.

(that sounds so much better to me that 4 days)

 

96 Hours Ago

Friday 7:00 AM

Everything was as normal as it gets in our lives.

We were in Hershey, PA for the PA State Fair Convention

JWS' voice is a little throaty.

Nothing unusual considering the party we attended the night before.

 

Business as usual.

90 Hours Ago

Friday 1:00 PM

Lunch and I notice his eyes are a little red and he is coughing.

 

Now at this point, I get the impending doom that we

are going to have a cold here.

My immediate thoughts are

1. A flight to Siberia

2. A self-induced (or vodka induced) coma.

3. Just make an appointment to have my fingernails ripped

out with pliers because that is going to be less painful.

 

81 Hours Ago

Friday 10:00 PM

 

And....we have a cold.

Coughing, Hacking, Shivers,

I text all knowing friends for sympathy

OMG, he has a cold!

OMG, what can I do for you?

So sorry for your situation.

Run for Siberia

 

You know, those kinds of sympathy that only women

can give one another.

 

79 Hours Ago

Friday 12:00 AM

JWS:   I need medicine.

So we leave the hotel in a snowstorm and drive to the

store and get him meds.

 

Now, one would think it was just cold meds.

However, this is JWS and he thinks,

1. He has bronchitis,

2. He has pneumonia,

3. He has legionnaire's disease 

or

4. He has a tumor and it is metastasizing.

 

I convince him that since all of those require more meds than

this grocery store has,

let's just buy Alka Seltzer Plus

and some cough drops.

 

I also buy some fruit.

Just because it looked like a good midnight snack.

We return to the hotel and share the fruit.

 

(That is the part in all this that really scares me...)

He promptly loses all the fruit.

We won't go into those details.

 

72 Hours Ago

Saturday 7:00 AM

He is down.

I have seen this before.

He has a cold and he is mean.

Normally good-natured, he is mean, mean, mean with a cold.

We all had plans to go some places.

I still went. 

 

Because really, it's not bad to be in a huge house with a mean

common cold patient,

but to be stuck in a hotel room with a mean

common cold patient is unbearable.

And,

honestly, I thought it was just a cold.

I did text him.

And...he was up and left the room at one point.

So, he had to be somewhat ok.

But he is coughing....bad...and the cough drops are not helping.

 

60 Hours Ago

7:00 PM

Still thinking it is just a cold.

He can be a little dramatic when he is sick.

I carry on with commitments. 

 

55 Hours Ago

12:00 AM

He decides he want to go to the Emergency Room.

I call the front desk to find out where to take him.

I get dressed, get ready to go and he falls asleep,

I sit there and read, knit, watch tv until 1;30, fully dressed and he does not wake up

so I go to bed.

 

Now between 1:30AM and 4:00AM,

he cranks the room temp up to sauna conditions,

he coughs incessantly

and

he gets up and leaves the water running in the bathroom

so,

I haven't slept much.

 

4:22 AM

I feel something thump on my bed and am startled awake.

It is a suitcase

and I hear this growl.

"Get up and pack, we are going home"

"NOW

 

50 Hours Ago

5:00 AM Sunday

I set the GPS to try to find the turnpike

I grab coffee at McDonalds

and start the four hour trek home...

not happy.

Driving

Tired

and now I am

MEAN.

 

At this point, JWS pops a cough drop in his mouth and

promptly

CHEWS it up! 

And I yell something to the effect of no wonder those aren't working!!!

 

47 Hours Ago

8:00 AM

We hit the ice storm.

And I ask him to drive...just over the mountain, please.

And...he does.

And...he falls asleep.

Screaming across two lanes of traffic he wakes up.

 

He drives over the mountain and the next half hour, straight to the

Emergency Room

at the hospital we normally go to.

 

45 Hours Ago

10:00 AM

We have a diagnosis.

Influenza.

He seriously asks if that is terminal.

I am exhausted.

 

43 Hours Ago

12:00 PM

We have stopped at Starbucks

for a

Grande Americano with Three Creams

for him.

Because you know, that is a priority in life if you have

the

terminal strain of influenza.

We head to Walmart to get his prescription filled.

800 mg of Motrin.

He thinks they have given him a rare drug for his condition.

I don't even tell him, I have taken that for a headache.

The cute little pharmacist girl tells me a half hour.

I debate whether to just go buy it off the counter and make my own script

but

he wants homemade chicken noodle soup

when he gets home

so I do my shopping

and go back to the pharmacy

where I am told it will be another half hour.

I look around at the assemblage of Walmart people

in their pajama pants

and

slippers

with nothing else to do on a Sunday morning

and I quietly and distinctly say to this cute little thing,

"Look, honey, I have just driven four hours across the state of Pennsylvania

on two hours of sleep

and then sat in the Emergency Room

for three more hours,

with a sick husband

who is now waiting in the vehicle,

and I have another 45 minute drive home....

I suggest you bump that prescription to the front"

 

She looked scared.

Two minutes later, I had the prescription.

 

So, here we are,

96 hours later.

I have

*Sanitized every possible surface

*Made homemade chicken noodle soup

*Made caramelized Brussels sprouts

(don't even try to figure that one out)

*Dispensed Meds

*Figured out the Sanitizing Cycle on the Dishwasher

*Served "those eggs that you put in the little hole in the middle of toast"

and

somehow avoided making Pot Pie that he thought he needed. 

 

But all in all,

I have discovered,

when he is finally really sick,

not just sniffling, meanie, cold sick.

He is not that bad of a patient.

 

I am actually relieved!

 

As a side note though,

I have put all cooking channels on child lock out today.

There are limitations to my cooking abilities

and

he does not need any more wild ideas.