Given the Circumstances...

I have decided I am not a kind wife when it comes to my husband being sick.

There are a lot of factors here, especially with regard to the timing of this particular illness, and I should probably feel at least a little bad, if not about the fact that he is sick, then perhaps about the fact that I feel more sternness than compassion (I told him he was being ridiculous and needed to be sick more quietly).

To begin with, last week was one for the books that detail a mom's most dreaded events in life: at home with the kids and sickness in the house. In a nutshell, the kids got sick, and then I got sick, and then we were all sick-ish for longer than I am accustomed to.

During this time the Cat Daddy was on a 10-day TDY (ie, business trip). It was a big convention of sorts, the culmination of months of hard work from folks around the nation. So they came together to wrap up their efforts. The Cat Daddy was in charge of making sure certain portions came together, and making sure other folks did what they were supposed to, and stuff like that. In the end, the Cat Daddy's wing (big group of people at work) came home with some high honors, and he had a super-duper time of things. A work hard/play harder situation, if you will.

Some (including me) would call it a boondoggle, but everything was on the up & up. Plus, I remember some really cool business trips I got to take in a previous life, so I really don't want to begrudge him a fun work trip. It's just a bit of a slap in the face to be sipping chicken soup (lovingly brought by a friend), having cleaned poop off the carpet for the zillionth time in a week, and be subjected to stories about cool hotels, and casinos during off-time, and whatnot. Pleased for him; bummed out about the timing for me.

Anyhow, time passed, the boys got mostly better, I got marginally better, and the Cat Daddy returned--Yay!! The weekend passed quickly with us painting several rooms in our house (with another loving friend keeping the boys for the weekend), just in time for the Cat Daddy to come down with what I assume is the same crud the boys and I had.

Now, once I discovered/admitted that it was in fact a bug infecting our family (a week or so ago), I canceled and minimized commitments, and we stayed close to home and watched a whole lot of TV. No fun, but minimally invasive, all things considered. Although it has taken longer than I felt it should have, the boys' functions are all very-nearly normal again, and while I have lingering blahs, I'm definitely on the upswing. So I was feeling optimistic-ish about this week. Fresh start, easing back into health, and so on.

The Cat Daddy on the other hand, is quite possibly the epitome of husband-sickness. Where I have accused him of Suck-It-Up Syndrome in other areas of life, when it comes to sickness he lets it all out and then some. And due to the nature of his job, he can't just take a couple days off and get better. He had to report to sick call at the base clinic bright and early this morning. Sick call is where they can make sure folks aren't faking, get all up in their business, and also get them the medical care they need to get better quick and get back to work. The Cat Daddy has driven himself to sick call in the past, and once in the past he came up with a fairly nasty sickness which implied that he probably should not have driven himself to sick call, and I think I probably have some lingering guilt from that...so when he asked me to drive him this morning I agreed.

"This is not fair!!" I said.

But even with sick call it's not quite that simple--he has paperwork to fill out. So we had to stop by the office both before & after sick call. And the doctor gave him anti-nausea meds to help him thru the crud, and then gave him more paperwork ordering him "to quarters" for a couple days to recover. Meaning, he is ordered to stay home and rest.

"I did not get paperwork ordering me to rest!" I said in my head.

He asked me to drive home faster.

I told him to stop talking and go to sleep and be sick.

He is sad I'm mad at him for getting sick. I contend that I'm really not mad at the real and true Cat Daddy. I'm mad at his virus, and I'm mad at his sick-self, who needs to sleep it off and please-stop-moaning-so-I-can-sleep-for-goodness'-sake.

In his defense, he stopped the moaning. I think he'll be on the upswing by tomorrow. Maybe we'll all be on the road to health by the end of the week. I hope. I don't have any boondoggles on the horizon, but I am plotting little pockets of escape for myself in the coming weeks.

I don't think the Caribbean is unreasonable...