Patience for the patient

This'll be a quickie, because there's too much going on today.  But, for my own sanity, and the safety of my dear hubby, I do need to take a few minutes...

You see, he popped a fever over the weekend.  After going through the checklist with the emerg nurse, we realized it was nothing to do with his surgery or any sort of infection, he'd probably just picked something up from one of his visitors.  A relief, to be sure, but...

OK, call me horribly sexist, but there's something about the combination of fever and Y-chromosome that is NEVER a good thing.  It seems to produce sucky baby at the best of times, and this is not the best of times.

The man was stoic through major surgery, hospitalization, sutures, staple removal, catheterization... and now give him a tiny fever and I JUST WANT TO SMACK HIM UPSIDE THE HEAD!!!

The man who wanted to get out of bed immediately post-surgery so I could have a nap now feels the need to call me downstairs in a panic because he needs a glass of water -- and I find him standing directly between the glass and the water source, thereby having to move him from between the two to provide him with the desired clear beverage.  SERIOUSLY?!?

After over a week of playing nurse (and not in a fun way), doing all the errands, shopping, cooking, cleaning, lifting, catheter bag tending, scrubbing down bedroom and bathroom from catheter bag going awry, washing untold loads of urine-soaked sheets, towels and clothes... and now a weekend of holding the barf bowl, cleaning the barf bowl, calling nurses and wiping fevered brow and getting maybe a total of 3 hours sleep because every time he wakes up and remembers he's sick he lets out a ginormous sigh and moan until I wake up and ask him what's wrong and he says nothing... THEN he's complaining about the messy state of the KITCHEN?!?!?

Where's my frikken' gun?!?!?!?   !!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, I know I'm not supposed to use this blog purely for ranting, I'm supposed to come up with some humanistic solution that helps all the readers and will make the world a better place, right?  OK, so...

Yes, this whole Movember thing is lovely, and all the folks who have mentioned Don in their pledges have been much appreciated.

BUT if you REALLY want to do a good deed for men's health (and the women who love them), how be we all chip in for some research in to the Y-chromosome and FEVERS?

If there is a doctor on this planet who can find the cure for the male fever -- or at least get rid of the damned symptoms -- I would give my first-born child.  You're right, I haven't given birth.  But I would turkey-baste myself this very day if it would help cure the feverish baby males of the world.  :-)

Incidentally, I also have a fever.  Yet, as a possessor of a perfectly intact pair of X-chromosomes, I am still somehow perfectly capable of taking care of both myself and my feverish victim of testosterone poisoning (my 3rd year male psych prof's term, not mine), and of pouring both of us glasses of water, without sighing moaning or whining.

Ranting, perhaps.  ;-)

I will be patient I will be kind I will not dump the barf bowl in his underwear drawer I will be patient I will be kind I will not empty his catheter bag into a glass and pretend it's flat ginger ale I will be patient I will be kind I will not allow myself near sharp objects I will be patient I will be kind...

Thanks for letting me vent -- you've probably saved a life (or at least a marriage) today.  :-)
Alyssa