Rules of Sickness - Now vs Then

Today I was reminiscing about my first year of teaching in St George. I haven't been feeling well lately, and it's had me remembering.

When you are a first year teacher, you manage to absorb every possible germ and bacteria you can lay your body on or near. These germs and bacteria manifest themselves into a potent, destructive illness that will leave you incapacitated and at its mercy for almost 2 weeks. We are talking 'man-flu', on steriods!

When I was first struck with this 'illness', which we shall, (for arguments sake) call "the worst illness I have ever had to temporarily endure" (aside from the many bouts of man-flu I have had to watch CP endure), I was lucky enough to have been struck down moments after moving a mattress out into the lounge room in front of the television (and metres away from the bathroom), thereby removing the need for me to have to abandon my position on the floor for anything other than a toilet break.

The first few days were spent in a dreary haze of hallucinations, sweat and fitful sleep. CP was on the phone (being my beau of approximately 3 minutes) offering to drive the hour it would take to get to my house, to give me comfort, medicine, love, or even all of the above. As we were still in the part of our relationship that required me to get up 5 minutes before him (and apply a small amount of makeup and fix my hair) so that he wouldn't have to endure the 'real me' when he woke up, I politely declined his very generous offer.

Eventually I was well enough to drive to the pharmacy to purchase medications that might actually cure me, (or at the very least, mask my symptoms) and rent some videos (this was in the days before DVDs and even internet downloads). One lovely lady I worked with even came to check on me, as I was living on my own at the time. I was a little embarrassed to let her see the revolting conditions I was existing in at the time, but I was sincerely VERY sick.

Anyway, I was thinking about all of this for a reason. Once upon a time CP would have driven 100km (or possibly even more) to pat my back and brush my hair when I wasn't feeling well. I wouldn't lay bets on if he would even cross the loungeroom to do the same anymore. Unless I looked like the girl in the picture above. Which I don't. Especially when I am sick. (I am more like Linda Whats-her-name from The Exorcist when I am sick).

And once upon a time I would have done anything to take away the pain when CP was sick. More recently we seem to spend time debating the actual degree of sickness the other is experiencing. A year or two back, CP was insisting that he was sick (which I put down to man-flu and did my best to ignore), and it turned out that it was food poisoning. Whoops! And morning sickness has given me an unnatural phobia of toilets. When a bout of nausea hits me I am automatically swept back in time to any one of my three pregnancies, and inevitably end up in the foetal position, willing myself to get better. CP goes out of his way to avoid me at those times.

How on earth did this happen? At some point we have become an old married couple!

Ahh times, how they change!

PS: As an after thought, I would like to add that CP has been pretty good today. So I guess he can still surprise me too! And it is nice not having to put on some makeup and fix my hair before he wakes up to know that he still loves me anyway!