Persephone said, in response to Ayesha’s comment on men and pregnancy,
I am a man and I could do the pregnancy thing with no problems at all. Furthermore, I am willing to prove it.
Of course, I need a woman to get me pregnant--------
I so understand this.
I cook, clean, and do laundry when I am sick.
When HE’S sick, he takes to his bed and plays coma victim.
He starts the NyQuil IV drip and is incommunicado except for food. Then he wonders why I ravage him after five days without sex. Most men are mega wimps when it comes to illness or pain.
Kricket: I don’t know if apnea itself is genetic. It depends on the cause, and they are legion. My husband has positively enormous tonsils, and a whole lot of extra tissue in his throat as well. Your husband and father–have they both actually been diagnosed with apnea by a doctor? If they have, your son’s pausing for breath in his sleep is something I would definitely recommend taking up with his pediatrician. It could be a problem later. But again, I am not a doctor, and I do not know if apnea is genetic.
One good/bad thing did happen today–my husband woke up with no voice. He’s had to sleep without his CPAP for several days, because the face mask is quite messed up due to age and use. He got a new one yesterday. But when he woke up this morning, his voice was pretty well shot. This is good in that he can’t whine. But it’s bad in that he also can’t sing. Oy.
I think the problem in my house is that my husband rarely gets sick. Everyone else will come down with whatever bug is going around and he won’t, so when the occasional bug does get him, well, it’s pneumonia!
I mean this literally. “Oh, God I can’t breath cough, cough I think it’s pneumonia sniffle, sneeze. Should I go to the ER?” Is a typical quote from Houseman.
When my kids where about 7 I actually had pneumonia. The doctor wanted to admit me into the hospital. I couldn’t go because someone had to be in the house from 2:20 until 7:00 to make sure the two 7 year olds didn’t kill themselves somehow. I was sick for one whole month. I thought I was going to die. I mean really, really huddle in the bed, can’t breath, can’t move, big bucket by the bed to catch the gallons of fluid I coughed up daily, hallucinating, might-as-well-have-been-in-the-hospital-because-if-the-kids-decided-to-kill-themselves-there-was-nothing-I-could-have-done-because-I-was-to-weak-to-move sick.
The doctor insisted someone come to the house to make sure I didn’t get out of bed because I could die if I did not remain there.
This is my husband on the phone with his sister: “Yeah, she’s got a bad cold. Can you stop by and cook dinner?”
This is my husband on the way out of the door to work: “Since you’re laying in bed anyway, why don’t I bring you the laundry bag so you can fold the clothes.”
He’ll never admit to being sleep either. Not ever.
Since Mr. Del treats me like a delicate flower (which I am, btw) when I am sick, I shouldn’t complain …
I shouldn’t complain …
I shouldn’t complain …
but … (you knew that was coming, right?)
why does he like being the walking wounded so much? He’s not the type to take to his bed as if he were Camille when he’s sick, but rather, he insists on doing everythiing as if he wasn’t sick, with the exception of adding very morose complaints about his illness, punctuated with sneezing, coughing, and groaning.
Me: Where are you going?
Him: I’m going to shovel the walk … even though I’m very sick and this might be the thing that finally puts me over the edge. If I die while I’m doing it, please remember to pry the shovel from my cold, dead fingers.
NB: we live in an apartment building that pays someone to shovel our walk, but Mr. Del likes it shoveled his way (whatever that means).
Me: What are you doing?
Him: I’m going to walk to the video store in this blizzard, because I’ve seen all the movies in the house too many times … even though I think this might be my deathknell, with this dire cold and all. But I’m willing to put my life on the line for “Ernest Goes to Camp.” I like to think of it as the ultimate sacrifice.
NB: we own maybe 200 movies on video and dvd (although, admittedly, "Ernest Goes to Camp is not one of them).
Me: What’s that?
Him: I thought I’d clear all this stuff out of the basement … even though I think I just coughed up a lung. But don’t worry about me. I only need one lung, and I’m sure this one will be fine once the mucous clears out of it. And the blood.
NB: that stuff has been in the basement for two years, untouched.
Could you just get in bed, or at the very least, lounge on the couch? Anything, as long as you stop talking about how you’re going to drop in your traces at any moment.
A guy here: Dammit! When I’m sick, my woman should make me feel better and then cook dinner and give me a BJ and a backrub!!
OK, I live in a fantasy world, as Astrofiancee has pointed out many a time (plus she doesn’t know how to cook, while I do; so I do all of our cooking and she washes up)… but still…
Truth is:
explanation #1: We men are socialized to deal with pain (from injuries) and short-term discomfort, but anything that lasts more than a few minutes is Kryptonite!! We, by default, revert to the womb, and cry for mercy!
explanation #2: We men feel inadequate when something like a cold slaps us down… therefore we whine a lot to make it seem MUCH more serious than it is; therefore making you (the woman) see us as impossibly brave to face down such a debiliating illness, and survive to protect the weak and fragile woman another day! (you’re welcome, fragile ones!)
explanation #3: The cold which Astrofiancee gave me last month WAS just a simple cold when she had it! But when she gave it to me (no, you preverts, I won’t tell you what we were doing when the transmission of infection happened; suffice it to say we were naked, and I didn’t CARE that I was gonna catch what she had!), it mysteriously * mutated* into a particularly virulent strain of Ebola!! It DID! I saw it happen! So forgive me for ocassionally mentioning that I was in some slight discomfort as my vital organs liquified! Trust me: the pain was FAR more severe than I allowed weak, fragile Astrofiancee to realize! Admire my strength! Swoon at my manliness, while I flex for you!
Choose your explanation, fragile ladies! But allow me to nudge you in the direction of number 3… it seems to me that it has the ring of truth to it…
Speaking as a guy: when hubby is sick, expect nothing from him, and leave him alone!!
Astroboy: Explanation #1 is sort of believeable. #2 & #3 are well-written and quite amusing, but utter bullshit nonetheless.
So I choose explanation #4: Y’all are just a big ol’ bunch of whining wussies. Nyah.
delphica: That’s him. That’s my husband. You nailed it the way I couldn’t in my whine-addled rant. Except for the part about him treating you like a delicate flower when you’re sick. My husband doesn’t demand a whole lot from me when I’m sick–I’ll give him that much. But what I can’t seem to do is get time to rest. He’s always got something going on that requires his attention right now, which means I’ve got to stop napping or whatever and take care of the kids. Like whatever he’s doing is FAR more important than me actually getting some rest. And usually, it isn’t. Either that, or he’s GOT to wake me up because he’s looked EVERYWHERE and he CAN’T find his other shoe, so could I please get up and change the baby’s diaper while he looks for it, because he’s GOT to get ready for work. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Damn…you know there just ain’t much for us y-chromosomers to do when it comes to trumping that pregnancy card.
So far, mrs beagledave has been lucky…no nausea…still sleeping moderately well for the most part. I just got a bad feeling about long labors and yucky deliveries. And no matter how crappy I feel with the flu or cold next year…I know I’m gonna get “that” look.
I miss having my mom rub Vicks on my chest …<sigh>
[Rod Serling voice] For your consideration, here’s the story of a man who experienced other peoples’ illness…[/Rod Serling voice]: my father.
You could not, NOT, be sick around him because within a few hours he’d have exactly the same illness only much, much worse. (This got a little amusing when when the problem was menstrual cramps.) Flu, cold; didn’t matter. You could be a barfing, fever-ridden mess and pretty soon Dad was feeling a bit peaked himself. Then he’d graduate to full, moaning decrepitude and you’d find yourself having to take care of him.
The weirdest part was it was completely sincere and unconscious. I don’t know whether it was a bid for attention or some kind of pschosomatic thing like interns supposedly go through, i.e. developing symptoms of the “disease of the week”. But you absolutely could not be sick yourself because within a few hours you’d have to nurse dad back from the brink of the grave.
Make no mistake, he was a great guy but a total wimp about illness. It took a straight jacket and a team of oxen to drag him to a doctor, but he just had this weird quirk.
Veb
My goodness! My last boyfriend said the same exact thing to me when I was sick as a dog! It was my first semester of college and I woke up one morning with a fever hovering around 102 degrees and a penchant for a NyQuil-induced coma. The first day was heaven: he went to Wal-Mart and got me Nyquil (pills, not liquid, 'cause the liquid gives me hallucinations). He bought me a heating pad, Vicks VaporRub, DayQuil, and made me chicken soup for dinner. He slept on the rollaway so I could have the bed to myself.
By the next morning, he couldn’t take it anymore. “You aren’t going to class? Will you clean up?..Sorry, don’t get all pissed, jeez Sarah!..Fine. Well if you’re gonna be here all day can you do some laundry? Just the two loads in the…Ok, ok, I’m sorry! Christ! I’m going to class! Sorry I asked!”
I finally went back to my dorm room to suffer in silence with my drug-addict roommate. She was more sympathetic that he was. :rolleyes:
Tveblen, except for the cramps part, that’s my dad. Great guy in all other ways, but has elevated being ill to an art form. One of his specialties is sneezing so explosively that pictures fall of the walls, and car alarms several blocks away go off. He claims that he’s “blowing the dust out,” and that his sneezes are not as germ-packed as everyone else’s. This contrasts nicely with the look of utter disgust he will give you if you sniffle while in the same room as him: “Use a tissue for God’s sake!” he’ll say.
One weekend some years ago, he and my mom ended up in the E.R. one after the other over the course of about 24 hours. I don’t remember exactly why, but suffice it say that they both got suddenly, unexpectedly ill. Both were sent home with medication and instructions to rest up. Guess which one ended up making dinner for the other one? After she endured his piteous cry from upstairs: “Kaaaaaaaren… is there anything to eeeeeat?”
My own boyfriend is one of the stoics. When one of us gets really sick, the other one usually does a juice/goodies/pills run, and that’s nice. The only downside is that he doesn’t like admitting he’s not feeling well, and I’m a worrier, so when he finally does take a day off I sometimes end up worrying that he’s got Ebola.
beagledave: Trumping the pregnancy card? BWAAAHAHAHA! Sorry. For as much as I’ve ranted here, yeah, we do have a tendency to do that, don’t we? “What are you whining about? Oh, you’ve cut off your leg, and it hurts? Pah. That doesn’t hurt. Have a baby, then we’ll talk about pain! Now go get a band-aid and quit whining!”
[sub]I was making fun of myself there, just in case anyone missed that…**
And I know what’s going to happen tomorrow. He had to teach students this afternoon, and he’s gigging tonight. One day a week, he works two jobs. So tomorrow, all I’m going to hear is "honey, I need a nap! I worked two jobs!" AS IF it’s something he does every freakin’ day. Even when he’s NOT sick Sundays are “Whine About Working Two Jobs” day. Sigh. Maybe I’ll just ask him if he wants a cookie or a Bozo button.
The thing of it was, I was not suffering from a cold or the flu. I was deathly ill. The doctor told us I could die. Seriously.
I thought about how he acted during that time and I think he was in complete denial. If he thought it was just a cold and if we acted as if was just a cold, then it would be just a cold.
Of course every cold he got after that was pneumonia.
Omigod, so it isn’t an isolated quirk!
Totally cracked up over the falling pictures, car alarms, etc.
Just to make it funnier, my mom was the germ freak. She had reason; scarlet fever as a kid left her with leaky heart valves and a severe allergy to penicillin, etc. So she dreaded disease; not easy for a teacher!
If my sister or I got sick we were banished to our room for the duration. All dishes got washed w/ disinfectants and you could get chemical burns from the Clorox in the sheets. No kidding, if we wandered out of isolation for some orange juice or to go to the bathroom, Mom would spray a fog of Lysol in our wake.
FYI, my folks were divorced when I was 5. My sis and I are croggled over the fact they managed to conceive us, much less survived pregnancy, childbirth, infant pooping and whooping and measles and such. It was a positive relief to reach adulthood just so we could be sick in peace.
Veb
P.S. Sorry for the editing; totally screwed the pooch on the vb coding. Lessee, that little “preview” thingy means you can things over first…right. Got it.
[Edited by TVeblen on 02-25-2001 at 01:03 AM]
You know ladies, that labor and delivery thing works for anything.
My brother in law came home complaining about his weekend of test to go into the army. How tired and sore he was from no sleep.
Well, buddy, try carring 30 or so pounds of extra weight for nine months, spend a day and a half in labor, and then give birth to a ten and a half pound boy, and then you can have my sympathies.
Okay, so I was cranky! But, he never brought it up again.
Now, my mom is a hypocondriac. It isn’t just a sympathy thing, she actually makes herself believe she is sick within minutes after you tell her you or the kids are ill. I have gotten to the point that even if I am in bed with bronchitis, I will die before I tell her, just so I don’t have to listen to her.
Persephone, I am going to get him in since he has had many bouts of croupe, and had been hospitalized because his epiglotis swoll up so big he could have sufficated. My father has been diagnosed, and has one of those machines, my husband has not.
Couldn’t drag him to the doctor for anything! But, I remember one of the first times he stayed the night at my house before we were married, and as I lay there in the after glow watching him peacefully sleep, he stopped breathing. I swear, I thought I had killed him! He does only do it when he is really tired so that is a plus.
Um, Astroboy? Nice try!
Gee, and I thought I was a wimp because a couple of weeks ago my stomache hurt and I quit eating for three days…
Dave
…who just got out of the hospital after a four day stay due to acute pancreatitis…
I can’t throw in with you, man. Sorry 
I get sick,I work. I cook. I take the kids to school.I am not permitted sick days, personal days or vacation days. Lying fucker, you say? Nope, I’m a freelancer. I don’t work, I DON’T FEED THE FAMILY. Or, help feed, since Mrs. Cartooniverse does work full time.
I hate being waited on. Always have. I broke my fucking awful goddamned shitty back last Sept. 21, and for about 4 days, was unable to move without screaming. Taking a shit was a Technicolor film of agony. ( TMI? Sorry…it’s the Pit ). THEN, I got waited on by wife and kids, out of necessity. It was awful, and didn’t last one day more than needed.
You wanna see a pussy when sick? Check out my wife. The fucking world comes to a crashing end when she gets sick. AND she has paid sick days. Fucking bitch.
Cartooniverse
Gee. That was oddly cathartic.
Yeah. I got a nap today. A nice long one, uninterrupted.
On the down side, his voice is coming back, and he was able to pick up whining where he left off a day or so ago. But he still hasn’t gone to the drugstore to get himself some Sucrets.
:::Persephone begins beating head in to wall:::
Um, Persephone? Maybe some bbq sauce for those nuggets?
I hate when that happens and they behave just to make you feel bad for figuring they are going to act the way they have many times before.
You just wanna go over and smack em’.
Hey, that’s not a bad idea…