Rating your caretaker

As I eluded to in my last, brief, yet very descriptive post, I was sidelined with a gastrointestinal plague earlier in the week. I was IN BED for 36 hours. The last time I did that was 19 years ago and was rewarded with a snot filled rugrat for my trouble. This time, not only tortured my body, but also my spirit. I am not a good sick person. I get cranky when I don’t feel well. All I wanted to do was sleep between dashes to the el inodoro. I was even too sick to read and watching TV was getting boring. Plus since I am on a 90-day-new employee probation at the new job, and had to take a sick day, when they are asking a minimum of 2-3 hours of overtime per day, and 8 additional hours on the weekend, I was worried the intestinal queen was going to have to go job hunting. To say they were not happy with me when I called, would be an understatement. She made it perfectly clear that EVERYONE is to work these additional hours because the company landed a big account and wants to look good. Okay. The boss in ME is thinking..hmm, how long were you in negotiations with LARGE MEDICAL CENTER? Were you caught completely unaware that you would need staffing to cover the ginormous increase in work volume. You do know that people are looking for work all over don’t you? I know this is a job that requires special training but there are tons of people out there that can do this. So , they are sending out nastygrams to all of us that work there, telling is we have to put in mandatory OT. I called and tried to nicely explain that I am new, and accepted the part-time position for a reason. I have NO desire to work for them 7 days a week as I have a family and another job and would actually like to do a load of laundry now and then. Their answer……tough. Too bad. You have to do this. So, I am thinking I may want to keep looking for another position. (But then the realist in me looks at the checkbook and sends a shock to my lazy ass and tells me to shut the hell up and get back to work..who turns down work in this economy…et cetera. I just need a freakin break already…and the 36 hours in bed this week do not count, as I was not having fun). So actually none of that has anything to do with the title of my post. What I planned on expounding upon was how some people are natural caregivers and some are not. I was born taking care of people and animals. I believe my time on earth is to be the one that takes care of everyone else. I didn’t pick this job, it seemed to pick me. I am the one that goes out in my sox, into wet grass,(AND I HATE WET GRASS) to snag the collar of all the random dogs and cats that find their way to my yard. It causes mad chaos amongst my menagerie when they know I am outside with “a potential intruder” animal. I usually end up in my car returning the animal to the stupid owner that lets it wander aimlessly all over and poop in my yard. There are a couple of frequent fliers that know their way home so over time we have learned to just wave/wag to each other and move on. But, that isn’t what my title is about either. See, by Wednesday, when I still was having monstrous belly pain, it actually made me cry, I got S3 on bus and went back to the bed for a minute to recuperate (sitting watching for a bus for 3-4 minutes can be exhausting you know), and when I laid down BigD heard me cry. This is not something I do lightly, or often. In between gentle sobs I told him I was worried about getting fired, we would starve to death, lose our home, have the kids repossessed, and have to live in squalor-with toothless neighbors. He insisted on taking a sick day to stay home and care for me. This was 7:30 in the morning. Ya coulda knocked me over with a feather. But hell, who am I to argue? I had visions of warm chicken broth being served, maybe a little soothing back rub, or at the very least sympathy. I told him I had to pop back into my office to send off some work I had done and that I would be back. At that point, he fell back to sleep, and slept till I woke him at 11:30. I told him how touched I was by his concern and asked him to please keep his snoring down a tad. Later, he said he would run to the store and get something for himself and S3 to have for dinner. I had informed him that the thought of buying food, much less cooking and SMELLING it would probably cause my death. He ran to the bank for me (oh, but he forgot to deposit my check so I am waiting for some checks I wrote to bounce now, adding a $39 fee each time) and then he went to the store. The following is a list of the items he brought home: 1.) 3 boxes of instant pudding (none of which are flavors I like-but he didn’t know that, we have only been married almost 28 years~~but hey HE really likes pistachio). 2.) A raw salmon filet (yum, when one has been sick, nothing says I love you like raw fish) 3.) Milk. ( I haven’t had milk since I was 6 and was forced to drink it, plus there is that pesky lactose intolerance thing I have had ALL MY LIFE) 4.) Toasted macaroon cookies (coconut is good for hematochezia isn’t it?) 5.) Lets not forget the large bag of tortilla chips. They will come in handy . When S3 asked him what he got for dinner, I saw the look on his face that said “Oh, shit, I didn’t even think about dinner” but was came out of his mouth was “Oh, I thought we could think about that at dinner time” (it was 5:00 then…did he mean dinner time next week?) So, I turned around, walked back to the bedroom. S3 ended up making himself a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches, self sufficient lad that he is. As for BigD, all I know is that when I came downstairs the next morning, the entire pack of macaroons was gone. Don’t even get me started on what the kitchen looked like.