I got one kid down, and I got the husband down.
I have a shameful thing to admit.
I’m a TERRIBLE NURSE. I hate taking care of sick people. I have no bedside manner. Oh I’m fine with the technicalities. You’ll get what’s needed. Absolutely. And I’ll know how much medicine you need or have had, what your temperature is, how your symptoms have changed. Have no fear of that.
I lack patience. Patient Patience Ha!
Now, mind you – I get sick too. I do. I don’t want fawning though. I want to be left the hell alone when I get sick.
I think that this is yet another legacy of my upbringing. You see as I was growing up – I was in and out of hospitals all the time it seems. Not for me, for mom and grandma. Heart conditions, tumors, some cancer, it was just ongoing. So now, I have trouble even visiting someone in the hospital. I can’t bring myself to do it. The part that really effected me though was the martyrdom of my mother.
You see me? I’m at my daughters recital. Oh no, I got out of the hospital a few days ago. Oh I’m a little weak… But I’ll be fine. Don’t mind me. Oh – you’re watching Michele? Oh gee… I suddenly don’t feel so good. Here let me take my meds. Oh I take this for this and that for that. Oh, you’re watching Michele again? Oh, honey – see if one of the moms can take her home when it’s done, I just need to go home and lay down.
Over and over and over again.
Here’s the kicker. She really was sick. This wasn’t some weird thing. She really was. But she also really really wanted the attention for it. She did. At all the times when it really was ok for me to have some attention – like a band concert, or a dance recital, where I was on a stage for Christ’s sake.
Now? I don’t want attention when I’m sick. At all. Or if someone’s sick at work? I don’t care. Stop telling me how awful you feel. You feel that bad? Go home to bed, stop crying here.
Add the resentment I sometimes feel when I’m sick – and guess what folks? I have to work anyway because I have to save my sick days for the kids. I only stay home with a high fever (note I didn’t say just fever) or I actually feel that driving would be dangerous due to my condition. I already have to take so much time off for the IEP’s and meetings and conferences associated with the kids. And Hey! I want to keep my job.
Sickness just annoys the hell out me.
And remember how I said I was falling into the abyss and overwhelmed? Well, now Poe’s down with the ick as well. Leaving me. To do it all. And I’m not sure I can. Thank God it’s the weekend.
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