DOES ANY of the following sound familiar? He feels shivery, sweaty and weak. His body aches all over. His nose is streaming, his head thumping, and he really shouldn’t go to work, but …
Yep, my partner has a cold. At this time of year, it’s highly likely that the other members of the family will also acquire runny noses, although none of ours will be nearly as bad as his. Evidence of this life-threatening condition is strewn all over the house: scrunched up tissues, packets of Panadol, Lemsip, the odd half lemon left over from his lemon/honey/hot water concoction.
In case anyone fails to appreciate his suffering, he wears his dressing gown all day and insists on everyone evacuating the bathroom so that he can stew in the bath. When he finally manages to speak, it’s in a cartoon ‘at death’s door’ kind of way, as if he’s shut down the back of his throat.
What is it with men and their tendency to ham up minor ailments? Most men would have it that this is a wild generalisation — and an utterly sexist one to boot. Everyone has their own pain threshold and gender doesn’t have anything to do with it, right?
My friend Sarah would disagree totally. Her partner David has a shoulder problem, probably caused by clutching the phone between his shoulder and ear at work. “I’m sure that the pain’s genuine,” Sarah says, “but what gets to me is the fact that he simply refuses to see the doctor or an osteopath. He just mooches about the house with his pained-eyebrow expression.”
To stop the moaning, Sarah asked an aromatherapist friend to come around and give him a massage. “My friend told him she thought he might have some slipped vertebrae. Was he upset? Hardly. David was simply delighted to discover that something else was wrong with him.”
Another friend, Lucy, reports that her partner Tony never has normal complaints like tiredness or food poisoning; he has chronic fatigue syndrome or gastroenteritis.
“One time he was convinced that he had Weil’s disease. He’d read about it in the paper, and all the symptoms were there.”
Lucy pointed out that Weil’s is usually contracted by coming into contact with rat urine — ie, from swimming in ponds or canals. And Tony hadn’t been anywhere near stagnant water.
“But he still managed to convince his doctor that he had it, and spent three days in the infectious diseases hospital in North London. When I visited him, I had to wear a surgical mask. It turned out to be ‘flu.”
But while the menfolk glory in your undivided care and attention when they are feeling lousy, I’ve learnt not to expect the same level of TLC should I, gasp, dare to feel unwell.
Me: “I’ve got a pounding headache.” Him: “Have you written your column yet?” When I showed him the gravel embedded on my knee — an injury caused by falling over while I was out for a run one night — he actually yawned.
I’m sure that when I had chickenpox, and was walking around sporting 900 chickenpox scabs, he deliberately speared his hand while adjusting his car seat, causing an ant-sized injury which ‘gushed blood’ during his 40-minute drive to work and nearly stained his shirt.
My friend Jo’s partner has had three full body scans, even though no one has ever discovered anything remotely wrong with him. After giving birth to their daughter, Jo had a whole load of stitches and was in such pain that she was offered a private room at the hospital. When the consultant popped his head around the door and asked “Are you feeling more comfortable now?”, her partner weakly responded “Yes, I’m much better thanks”.
All most of us want when we are feeling poorly is to have our illness acknowledged. That is why, perhaps, my partner is sniffing and coughing in bed, as if he’s afraid that I’ll forget he’s there. The next time that weak voice comes from the bedroom, requesting a glass of water and the TV guide, I try to be a bit more sympathetic.
What, I ask him, made him feel better as a child? Lucozade? Heinz Cream of Chicken soup? He tells me his mother would make him boiled eggs with plain toast soldiers and a concoction called switched eggs: that’s raw eggs, milk, sugar and a shot of brandy or sherry swizzled together in a glass. And it tasted lovely, he assures me. He would lie on the sofa with the coal fire roaring, reading comics or watching TV.
“Being ill,” he says gleefully, forgetting his cold for a moment, “was brilliant.” Let’s hope he takes more vitamin C next year.
Resolutions for 2004
1. Throw out all my ‘life coaching’ books and just ‘do it’.
2. Eat more sweeties without feeling guilty.
3. Never buy another pair of tights.
4. Never go out without matching underwear.
5. Stop threatening my kids they’ll become plumbers if they don’t study (plumbers are handy people to have around).
6. Take more vitamin C – and drink more good wine.
7. Send my columns to my editor on time (or at least try).
8. Stop letting people upset me with their attitude: it’s their problem, not mine.
9. Throw out all non-sexy items of clothing.
10. Stop trying to change the world — it just ain’t gonna happen.
