I have a sick husband at home today. As I type this, I am upstairs in my little office, but I can hear him coughing tiredly as he sits on the couch downstairs, poor baby. Yesterday he came down with a sneeze that we both attributed to allergies—our trees have started to bloom within the last week and he is a frequent sufferer from hay fever. But as the day wore on, it became clear that our initially optimistic diagnosis was dead wrong. He has a full-blown spring cold. Cough, fever, aches and pains, runny nose, the works.
Why is it such a cliché, that wives often think their husbands dramatize their illnesses? I don’t know, but I know that my husband and I do have very different styles of dealing with being sick. I have always been extremely healthy, and can say with gratitude that I’ve faced very few serious bouts of illness in my life. Perhaps as a result, I tend to minimize my symptoms and pretend that they won’t affect my life. I continue to try to keep up my normal daily schedule, getting up at the same time and launching into my day even when it’s clear I’m not at my best. Sometimes this works for me and I can just bull my way through a minor cold, relying on a strong constitution to get me back to health within a few days. Other times my strategy is a dismal failure, and I wind up lying in bed exhausted from doing too much yet feeling guilty for not taking care of business like I think I should be.
My husband’s style is very different. He has had more experience of real sickness than I ever have. Since childhood he’s dealt with broken bones, abdominal surgery and one life-threatening case of meningitis in his teenage years. Normally he enjoys a high level of energy and health, but when he comes down with something, he doesn’t fool around and pretend that he’s healthy when he’s not. He devotes himself completely to the job of recovery. He changes his entire routine and becomes a new kind of person: a sick person. Otherwise known as a “sickie”, in our family vernacular.
A sickie doesn’t get dressed, he stays in the same PJs for three days. He doesn’t shower, because you wouldn’t want to take a chance on getting chilled. He needs a completely different diet—the kind old-fashioned cookbooks used to devote whole chapters to in sections called “Cooking for Invalids”. Clear broth soups, delicate poached eggs, herbal teas by the gallon, toast. A sickie thrives on frequent check-ins and cool compresses for his forehead. Cashmere blankets and a cat for company are extremely therapeutic treatments. It’s also very important to avoid over-stimulating the sick person—gentle distraction is what you want to aim for. The best entertainment is a baseball game with the sound turned down.
In the early years of our marriage, it took us both a while before we appreciated how best to nurse each other. Mark thought my habit of denying when I was sick was foolish. He insisted that I slow down when I needed to, and was prepared to sit on me to enforce rest if I protested. Even now, whenever I get a cold, he’s all solicitude. He tucks me in on the sofa with extra pillows, blankets, a cup of tea. I love it, even when I feel a twinge of my old self internally fussing, “but I’m really not that sick—I have work to do!”
I’ve tried to learn from him how to do a good job of being a caretaker. This is just another way in which living with him has made me a nicer person. And really, we get so few opportunities in adult life to just be taken care of, to not have to make decisions and be in charge all the time. I’m happy to have the chance to demonstrate love in such little practical ways: to empty the trash can full of damp Kleenex, to bring another cup of herbal tea, to fluff up his pillows and spread out his throw blanket, to make a special batch of chicken soup.
For a few days, at least.
