2 weekends ago, after I had spent Saturday night throwing up every hour on the hour and was lying in bed Sunday morning completely exhausted and feverish, my husband put his cool hand on my forehead and said, “STAY IN BED.”
He brought me ice water and ginger ale when I moaned.
He went to the store and bought a tin of gingersnaps because I thought I might be able to keep them down.
He checked on me every so often and rubbed my neck when the headaches struck.
When I was throwing up, he brought me water and went away when I told him to.
When I was feverish and woke with night sweats at 2 a.m., he didn’t complain when I turned the ceiling fan on for an hour, despite the fact that it’s been hovering around zero temps and the house was quite cool already.
When I was shaking with chills, he put his arm around me and tried to warm me up even though I had to tell him he couldn’t because it made me feel squeezed, which made me feel nauseated which, you guessed it, made me throw up.
He didn’t say a word about my massive bedhead, my unbrushed teeth, my glassy stare, my tossing and turning, or the state of the bed after I spent 96 consecutive hours in it.
When I said, “I don’t think I can go to work tomorrow” each day, he agreed with me.
Despite the fact that I couldn’t sleep, kept getting up, and was probably grinding my teeth and snoring like a fiend when I actually WAS asleep, he never indicated for a second that I might be disturbing his rest, even though HE had to go to work.
He took over my driving duties and chauffeured Martin and the kids to school all week. He picked them up. He took Karin to her trainings and picked her up. He went to the grocery store more than once just to get me more ginger ale. He made dinner every night for the kids and made sure they took baths and went to bed on time.
And he made me chicken soup from scratch.
Today was the first day I went back to work. I felt kind of shaky every now and then, and I sound like I swallowed a couple of frogs, and every meal leaves me feeling faintly queasy, but I worked until 3 and was glad of it because laying at home stressing out about missing a whole week of work and knowing how much I had to do was not at all restful. I AM taking it easy, I swear. I’m working again tomorrow, if I feel up to it, though again only until 3. I have Friday off, and all next week, and once Christmas is past, nothing but relaxation and rest time, if I need it.
And when I came home, after stopping at the grocery store and NOT buying ginger ale NOR gingersnaps, I laid on the couch and rested. When Anders came home, he put his cool hand on my forehead and asked me how I was. “I’m okay,” I said. And he took his hand away and stood up. And when I asked him to put his hand back on my head because it felt so nice, he did.
In sickness and in health, indeed. I love you, Anders.
***
Healthy Heaps of Belated Birthday Wishes to georgiamars, americantjej, sari, kachunknorge, fiveandfour, cap_killer, ms_jacket, Sam and an extra smooch today for Wee!