Through Sickness

Yesterday Chris got sick.

No.

Yesterday Chris got really sick.

I brought him supplies around 10am, but after checking back at noon he'd only gotten worse.

I made an emergency doctor's appointment with my doctor. The doc tested Chris up one side and down the other then treated the boy to a stinging shot in his butt.

When we got home I washed his dishes, disinfected the apartment, did his laundry, gave him his meds, held the trashcan whilst he got sick in it, kept a cool towel on his head, then unrolled a sleeping bag and tried to get some sleep on the floor beside his bed.

He asked me today how I felt seeing him that way. The smell, the look, the weakness and delirium...how did I feel having to handle all that?

I had to admit...

I didn't even notice it.

It's like my conscious mind looked right past all the potentially yicky stuff and just took care of business.

Love is blind; maybe to reason, but definitely to the stench of sick.

I remember being grossed out when my mom would reach her hand into the disposal in the kitchen sink and pull out food and junk and throw it in the trash. I would groan "Grrrooossss mooommm...how can you dooooo that?!"

She told me that one day when I was mature enough to reach my hand in there myself, I would be mature enough to have my own children.

I think collecting and throwing out my fiance's "used" sick bag without feeling the least big squimish qualifies me to enter into the "through sickness" part of the marriage gig.

Yep.

Through sickness and in health.