In sickness and in health...

There are, without a doubt, many wonderful aspects to living with one's significant other. You get to share so much - not just your leisure time (which I love - it means I can read books or surf the net to my heart's content, whilst also keeping my feet warm underneath Mr Scribetur), but also daily chores such as cooking, cleaning, doing the washing up, etc. Whilst in many cases this means that jobs are halved, as it were, there are also times when sharing can double things. Such as coming down with illnesses, for example.

I am neither a very good nurse nor a very patient ill person. When I come down with something, I have to be persuaded - usually by Mr S - that it really isn't a good idea to go cycling out into the cold just to get a book, so I can spend the day in and working. And then I grumble about my inability to do said work, even though I'm clearly not capable of much more than drinking Ribena and watching bad television (and maybe writing slightly incoherent blog posts...). When my husband gets ill, usually a few days after I've recovered from whatever bug I had and then passed on to him, I do my best to show him more sympathy than I did myself, but that's not exactly saying much. I like to 'do' things to fix a problem, and at the end of the day looking after someone who is ill - especially if you live in the same small flat together! - only involves so much active running-around-after-helpful-medicines, and a lot of sitting beside them listening to them sneeze and cough. Which in turn makes me feel guilty, both for giving him the illness and for not being able to do more, which in turn makes me visibly crotchety, which finally winds up with my feeling guilty again. So falling ill, as a member of a couple sharing a small living space, means knowing that there's a fairly high chance that you'll pass it on, and that you'll recover only to have to look after the other.

Of course, I'm not always the 'first' to catch something, which stings in a different way. It's a bit like seeing a television preview of a programme that looks really bad, but you know you're going to have to sit through it anyway. And then when symptoms do start appearing, your other half magnanimously says, with his no-longer-sore-throaty-voice, "ah, yes, and next comes the bit where the main character does x..." Or, well, you get the picture. And sometimes, because human bodies are weird that way, you get 'bonus' symptoms your partner didn't get, kind of like a blooper reel on a DVD. 

This is all more in the way of a reflection than a complaint - if I were living alone, I'd still get ill every now and then, and I wouldn't have anyone to tell me to sit down and relax, for goodness sake (you masochist), or to make me cups of Lemsip whilst I'm curled up on the sofa. And as for the looking after my partner when he's ill, though I might have the bedside manner of Dr House (or, if you want a more geeky allusion, of the holographic doctor on Star Trek: Voyager), I do it out of love. After all, though there is nothing worse than watching the person you love suffer, however mildly, there is nothing better than caring for them - in sickness and in health. I just wonder if that part of the marriage vow should come with a disclaimer* pointing out that at times there might be twice as much sickness, and half as much health as there ever was before.

*Speaking of disclaimers: Astute readers might have guessed that I am currently somewhat cold-ish. Please forgive any errors of grammar, and mentally adjust the slightly Eeyore-ish tone of the above accordingly!