Dear faithful readers, your comments on the last post cheered me hugely because of their sympathy and empathy and because of your own stories of aging. Thank you.
I am feeling a bit better than last week, but poor Dave has the flu, and I am trying not to catch it.
Dave has a characteristic way of behaving when he is ill and it is best illustrated in the following old blog posts from 11 years ago.
October 17th 2011
A certain symptom
There’s a story in my favourite book - Garrison
Keillor’s Leaving Home - where the whole town of Lake Wobegon
gets the Swedish flu -
It’s the usual flu with chills, fever, diarrhoea, vomiting, achiness
and personal guilt, but it’s accompanied by an overpowering urge to put things
in order. Before you collapse into bed, you iron the sheets. Before you vomit,
you plan your family’s meals for the upcoming week.
Dave had a flu-like cold at the weekend.
Usually when he’s ill, he doesn’t go to bed. He scorns the very mention of bed.
This is his usual mantra: “I’m going out on my bike to teach this cold a
lesson.”
But this time he was so ill he did go
to bed. I wanted to look after him. I like looking after poorly people (at
least I do until it gets boring.) I wanted to make him drinks, fluff up his
pillow, bring him treats and a nice cold flannel for his fevered brow, but
he spurned all my offers.
Dave: “Do you think I’m going to die?”
Sue: “No, Dave. You’ve just got a nasty cold. Would
you like me to make you a drink?”
Dave: “Are you being a bit impatient with
me today?”
He said this three times on Saturday and three times
on Sunday, and I kept answering – patiently, of course - “No. I’m not
being impatient. I think you’re ultra-sensitive because you’re feeling so
rough. I’m actually being extremely sweet to you. Don’t I keep offering to do
things for you?”
Could paranoia be one of his symptoms?
This morning he was his usual self again, and even
though he was coughing, and his head was aching. and his chest felt as if
someone was sticking a loo brush down it, he went out on his bike.
I, however, started sniffing, and then worrying that
I was getting his cold, and then manically swallowing aconite every two hours
as a prophylactic. And no-one was being very nice to me: Zoe sounded unfriendly
on the phone, and the man in the cafe was rather off. Didn’t they like me?
Now Dave is sleeping in the other room so as not to
disturb me with his coughing. Or is it because he doesn’t like
me? And I am sitting here at midnight unable to sleep, two hours past my
bedtime, because my nose is running and my face hurts, and now my eyes are
sore.
7 a.m. the next morning. I have got it. And Dave
just came in and brought me a mug of sweet tea, without my asking. He always
looks after me beautifully when I’m under par.
October 19th 2011
Bulletin from the house of doom, formerly known as
Hepworth Towers
I spent a feverish night but have managed
to eat some porridge for breakfast.
Dave felt better from his killer bug,
went outside to work on the new fence, and cracked a rib.
This morning he says he has flashing lights in
both eyes.
October 21st 2011
Choosing the right verb
Dave: ‘Well, you look a tad less corpse-like this
morning. You look as if you might be climbing out of the pit of illness, not
cavorting in the bottom.’
Sue: ‘People don’t cavort when they’re ill.’
Dave: ‘No. It sounds like cavorting, it’s only when you
look down that you see they’re wrestling with death.’
Our village in winter
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