For Better or Worse

For Better or Worse

If my husband knew the date he was going to die, he’d probably slink off into the woods like my childhood cat Bootsie and would never be seen or heard from again. Me? I’d want Rose Bowl Parade floats and a full percussion band.

When I awoke on Saturday to my stomach roiling and head pounding like a kettledrum, this personality difference couldn’t’ve been more evident.

Flinging back the covers, I dragged myself off the bed and rolled back and forth on the carpet, resignedly moaning, “I’m gonna die….I’m gonna die.”

My husband sat up with his hair flying every which way and stared at me for a bit (gauging the seriousness of this proclamation, I suppose). Finally, he said, “You want Tums or something?”

“No!” I wailed, as if he’d offered hemlock, then writhed and groaned for another five minutes.

Despite my tendency towards drama, it really was quite awful and made even worse by the fact I’m proud of my immune system and none too shy about it. I’m always the one to eat something right off the floor (10 second rule loosely applied), and if a grocery item comes in our store with a sticker screaming, “KEEP REFRIDGERATED!” I have no qualms about swigging it straight from the carton, room temp and all. I’ll cut right through a room of people sneezing all over themselves and won’t even hold my breath or run to the nearest loo and lather myself up to my elbows like a surgeon.

But on Saturday morning my immune system let me down. Not only that, it dropped me like a hot potato, and I morphed from a semi-responsible adult into a sniveling, whiney mess.

God love ’im, this was not the first time I expected my husband to whisk into action like some bearded Florence Nightingale. A few months after we started dating, we went out for a late supper. No sooner had I eaten my broccoli and red pepper pilaf when my stomach started spitting and sputtering its protests.

Randy stopped for Sprite at a gas station, and the whole drive home I took sips from the green bottle then stuck my head out the window, lapping up the summer breeze like a dog. Thus distracted, I made it to my parents’ driveway without incident; but when I was walking up the path to the house, a wave of nausea knocked me flat, and I lost my lovely rice pilaf right there in the bushes. Instead of keeping my hair off my face or rubbing my back in a gentle circular motion like my mother’d always done, my boyfriend was nowhere to be found.

Miraculously revived, I marched into the house and up the steps into the den. There my knight in shining armor sat–hands in his lap, staring at me.

“Why’d you leave?” I snapped.

Shrugging, Randy said, “Thought you’d wanna be left alone….”

“Well, you were wrrrong!”

Although a few years old, this exchange must be fresh in my husband’s mind, for on Saturday — once he’d fully awakened — he leapt into action. Popping open a can of ginger ale, he set it on the bureau and helped me get off the floor and into bed. This movement made me stumble for the bathroom and dry-heave into the toilet, and once I returned, I took a dainty sip of ginger ale and Randy piled me with blankets.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, my husband asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

I paused a moment, then worked my feet out from beneath the ton of covers and wiggled my toes. “Yes…” I whispered, “can you rub my feet?”

“Do they hurt?” Randy asked, his face awash with skepticism.

Making my voice as weak as possible, I took a shuttering breath and closed my eyes, “Oh, yes…terribly achy.”

My husband didn’t say if he believed me or not, but I still felt him take my feet between his hands and begin to massage. At that moment I was so grateful our marriage vows said, “through sickness or health,” but I’m pretty sure as my husband oh-so-kindly rubbed my feet, he was thinking more along the lines of “for better or worse.”