When Mom Gets Sick
It doesn’t happen often and while it’s never supposed to happen, occasionally - mom gets sick!
Just after I’d finished cooking our families Easter meal, I could feel it coming on. Much like a blanket of doom that begins clinching your temples, on to the ears, down the neck - throwing fireballs at the back of your throat. Suddenly you find yourself at the point of no return. There is no taking extra vitamin C to fight it off, it’s there!
After everyone had finished eating, I made my way to the sofa. I grabbed a blanket to help remedy the chill that had set in through the deepest muscles in my being. My head suddenly felt as though it were a 20 pound bowling ball that I was trying to balance on my shoulders and my eyelids felt as though weights had been clipped on them in a way that was forcing them shut.
I slept. 10 minutes at a time, but I slept.
The thing that sucks most is living in a house of men who believe there is nothing more brutal then a case of the man flu. The female version is supposedly much more mild and reportedly doesn’t prevent it’s victim from carrying on with their normal day-to-day tasks.
Much of today has been spent trying to sleep between phone calls, laundry and getting what work done I can - you see, since I work from home, being sick is just a technicality that can easily be overcome. Just grab a blanket, grab the laptop - a cup of hot tea and get to work.
Earlier my husband came into the room with some salve and a cloth. I actually thought he was going to be nice and have my put some on my throat to help ease the burn. WRONG - he handed me the bottle, took off his shirt, knelt down and told me he had hurt his shoulder and that I needed to rub some ointment on for him.
I seriously hope in my next life that I come back as a man who is fortunate enough to marry a woman just like me.
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5 opinions for When Mom Gets Sick
kadi
Mar 24, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Funny…that very same phenomenon resides in our own family. Male illness is WAY more incapacitating and complaint inducing. I have to be temporarily blind, paralyzed or on death’s door to get a sick day. (sigh) Let me get my violin. I will non-sarcastically play it for you because I soooo feel your pain. Then, I’ll send a strapping, scantily clad male masseuse over to your house…I think his name is Zeus!! Get well soon :)
pickel
Mar 24, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Sending you some healing vibes!
CanadianMom
Mar 25, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Wait, you mean Moms are ALLOWED to get sick? When husbands or children are sick, the world is ending. When Mom is sick, ‘oh, it’s not THAT bad’
The worst for me is when I am sick, and the children get sick at the same time. It’s like swimming upstream with bricks on.
Gayla McCord
Mar 25, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Thanks for the healing vibes. I am feeling a little recovery coming. I slept darn near all day.
I’m still getting NOT a single ounce of sympathy - but that’s ok, because MOM got sick FIRST this time. The time will come soon when I will have my revenge Mwahahahaha :)
Ashley
Mar 26, 2008 at 7:42 am
Gayla, you’re right. I haven’t figured out if my husband thinks I’m superhuman, or if he thinks I’m not worthy of the same sympathy and nurturing that they recieve when sick..
I think it has something to do with our inability to unplug. When I’m sick I’m mentally still ticking off a list of to-dos in my head and still trying to conduct the day from my bedroom and still get up if the baby cries.. When he’s sick, he goes to bed and shuts the door and only stirs to ask for something. It’s so simple really, but I can’t bring myself to DO it.
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