Together Whatever

Tim and I are sick.

Typically, we get sick separately, usually with him having symptoms and me following him around with a can of Lysol to ensure he doesn’t get me sick. I quarantine him as much as possible, entreating him to cover his damned mouth when he coughs, washing dishes and bedding immediately after he touches it. He languishes in bed alone, groaning in pain from every cough and sneeze, while I stay in the living room, rolling my eyes so hard I give myself a headache.

I certainly don’t let him kiss me when he’s sick. I spent so much time sick as a child, I want to avoid it now like the plague.

Ha.

My aversion to colds is obviously an outgrowth of having a medically compromised child. As the person responsible for most of her transfers and hands-on care, I couldn’t risk giving her germs that might turn into pneumonia, which can be deadly for people with her disorder. By and large, I did a good job of protecting her; she had exactly one cold-like illness in her childhood.

Unfortunately, it was, in fact, pneumonia. She survived.

Whatever the reason, I am hyper-vigilant about avoiding Tim’s germs. It’s frustrating when he’s got a cough because he’s such a good kisser, and I hate to have that distance between us, but being sick puts me out of the action. Takes me out of the game. Makes me miss life.

I hate that.

But now, by some viral miracle, we started having symptoms on the same morning, and were in full-blown illness by the end of the night. We fell into bed Saturday night, passed out on Benadryl, and slept fitfully. Sunday, we languished in bed, watching Netflix and snuggling our germy bodies next to each other. We napped for a few hours in the afternoon, and just lazed around talking the rest of the day. It was heaven.

This seems to be a mild cold, passing through without serious symptoms. No fevers, no chills, just general tiredness and snotty heads. My sinuses were so congested overnight the pain in my face woke me up. But this really isn’t bad.

And I find I like being sick with Tim. Relieved of the need to fend off his invading illness, I can fall with him into sleep at 7:30 at night, have bizarre Benadryl-induced dreams (oh, I had a doozie last night!) and sleep until 8 a.m. I’m an early riser who has no need for lots of sleep typically. Right now, we can be together whenever, whatever.

So of course, I woke up with this song in my head. We both hate it.

🙂