...or are they?
Day 1
Husband returns from Moscow on Friday. Feels a bit ropey, complains about a headache, slumps on the sofa all evening. Retires to bed at around 10.30pm, asking if we have any paracetomol.
Day 2
Husband wakes up moaning, groaning and generally being a bear with a sore head. Asks for paracetomol again (which I have to dig out of the bottom of my bosky handbag because he has finished the stuff in the cupboard without telling me) and the thermometer. Takes a reading in both ears.
38.4deg C and 38.6deg C.
I think; 'Not low but not bad. We should be able to get some stuff done today.'
Husband says, in voice of doom "That proves it then. I'm sick", and retires to bed for the day.
Muffled laughter from the kitchen as I try not to think about how high my temperature would have to be for me to consider that an option...
However, Husband then spends the next evening and night alternatively throwing up and doing the opposite thing, so I am forced to revise my opinion somewhat and become slightly more sympathetic. Not too much though. That might encourage this illness-type activity...
Day 3
We are both exhausted; Husband from his nocturnal bathroom activities, me from being woken by them and being asked to fetch buckets and remedies at 4am. Husband's temperature still the same, and he rattles as he walks (not far, obviously) from all the paracetomol. Around 9.00am a thought occurs to me and I ask tentatively if he thinks he might have swine flu. Husband is surprised and unsure, so I go and check the symptoms online.
I present Husband with a printed out sheet. He reads it. The voice of doom reappears. "I definitely have it." I source some tamiflu, go out with boys to fetch it, bump into a friend on the way and we laugh consipiratorially about men and illness. Even so, when I get back with 'the goods', I wipe all the surfaces he's touched with antiseptic wipes. Just in case. And actually, it doesn't take long, since all he's done since he's been back is lie in bed and use the bathroom. (For those of you who snigger 'same difference' I ask you to keep that to yourselves...)
Husband spends the rest of the day in bed. I cancel all our scheduled activities and take the boys out for lunch where I console myself by stuffing down a mexican burger with fries. Better build myself up to fight off infection...
Day 3.
Definite improvement but not out of the woods yet - he tells me. Some 'light work' undertaken with the blackberry and the laptop, along with a pre-booked visit to the chiropractor which I suspect he mainly went to so he could come back and point out that the guy hadn't noticed there was anything wrong with him., so chirpractic really is a load of old bull...
I wonder what happened to my weekend.
Day 4.
Husband is sitting in the lounge having a meeting as I write.
I love him, but - hmmm.
my husband still complains about the lack of sympathy from me the one time he had flu. The fact that I was 7 1/2 months pregnant with a slipped disc and the same flu (flu - really? bad cold yes, flu hmmm) permenantly escapes him.
ReplyDeleteHope it wasn't, hope noone else gets it.
PS - why is it they can retire to bed when sick but we still have to get up and do a full day of child care which is oh so much fun when you are feeling awful!
FM - Because we are martyrs and if men had half the pain tolerance of women they would be the ones giving birth in the first place!
ReplyDeleteLCM x
p.s. PM, hope all feeling better and no contagion underway ;-)
Swine flu or Man Flu?
ReplyDeleteMy fingers are crossed that you and the boys don't catch it...
I doubt he had the Mexican flu, despite his moaning and groaning. He would not have recuperated enough to see the chiropractor. He probably just had some Russian bug, further undefined. Men always act like they are at deaths door when they are ill and need support to help them be ill. They can't do it on their own. It's all the mollycoddling they get from their Mums when they are boys. Do you hear me, PM?
ReplyDeleteMy brother has just had Swine Flu and he was the opposite. The help line was actually going to send an ambulance for him because he was so bad, but he said he'd be OK. He vomited and had a 106 fever for almost a week, has lost half a stone and says he's never had anything like it in his life.
ReplyDeleteI had swine flu a couple of weeks ago, and am still nurturing a 1 month old flu. It was pretty damn horrible, and yet I seemed to cope better than my husband did..... I just needed a couple of days to get on my feet, yet still managed to sort everything out around the house, he was in bed for a week.. I'm with nappy valley girl on the Man Flu angle!
ReplyDeleteTell me about it - man flu seems to trigger so quickly and to need just so much more in the way of sympathy and nursing than anything we get
ReplyDeleteEven if we're heavily pregnant and having to deal with small children with the same thing ...
Yes, this all sounds highly suspicious. Make sure he applies his oinkment though, just in case.
ReplyDeleteBrit, good question - and one that I'm hoping I don't have to think about from personal experience when the contagious period runs out!
ReplyDeleteLCM, me too - although I won't know for sure until the weekend. In the meantime I'm throwing as much orange juice and probiotic down my throat as I can possibly manage...
NVG, see above. And it will be interesting to see if we hear back on the test the NHS have sent through to him as a result of having requested Tamiflu. Yes, amazing, but they appear to want to know!
PM, I most certainly do, don't you worry!
EPM, yes, that half a stone thing. Husband did too - so maybe he HAS had it? (Oh, who cares - he's getting better, which is a blessed relief).
Nina, you're probably right. The test should tell though - assuming we hear back, that is...
MaM, do I detect a hint that you might be going through this yourself?
More Than, hahahahahaha. Snort...
HeIIo. DefiniteIy doesn't sound Iike swine fIu. Not that I've had it but my friend Jane did and she IiteraIIy couIdnt speak for two weeks and said she had never feIt worse. I think I had an earIy version Iast March> Id never feIt so iII in my Iife. High temp first few days, then monsterheadache every morning for 10 days combined with chest infection, and feeIing weak for two weeks and exhausted and unabIe to move.
ReplyDeleteIove the idea of you wiping everything down.
Hi Kate, sorry to hear you've suffered. And you're probably right, it didn't seem long enough for swine flu to me. As for wiping things down, don't you find it's a great displacement activity for actually cleaning them?
ReplyDeletemy hubby was exactly the same he spet 3days in bed, i get for the 2nd time?? i don't spend an hour in bed during the day something seriously wrong there?? man flu its the worst kind grrr
ReplyDelete