Pulling Together

Thursday night a friend treated me to dinner and a show.  It had been a rather rough day, what with Luie pooping massive, steaming piles in the living room around 5 a.m. and I felt grumpy and out of sorts.  By afternoon I felt tired and "not quite myself" but enjoyed the process of getting dressed in something other than jeans and a tee-shirt for an evening out.  

Dinner was wonderful and the show was entertaining, but mainly the shared friendship made the evening a big success.  When I left home, I reminded Hubby that there was plenty of food in the house, all he needed to do was microwave some chicken soup or make himself a low sodium chicken / ham sandwich.  On my return, I round he hadn't eaten dinner -- in fact, he hadn't moved from the bed.  I fixed him some cornbread and soup and noticed that I felt fairly queasy.  By midnight I was pretty miserable and by 2 a.m. I had a pretty decent case of the "24-hour misery" -- what we used to call the 24- hour flu but is actually gastroenteritis.  For the next 18 hours I was down for the count.

By 6 a.m. I warned Hubby that there was no way in h*ll I could walk those dogs so he manfully climbed out of bed, donned his turtleneck and set out, boys in tow.  At 11:00 he was out in the kitchen making chili -- now Hubby's chili is a "too-die" for dish - but not when you can't keep anything down, including soda crackers.  Still, there was food for himself -- and there was still chicken soup left over from a friend's ministrations earlier in the week. 

For 24 hours Hubby re-manned the household.  Of course he didn't do any dishes in the kitchen but he made sure the boys were exercised, the 7-Up was stocked, and the covers were pulled tight.  I really didn't resurface until late afternoon on Friday, and then only to slurp down some of that delicious smelling chili and head right back to bed.  Yesterday I walked the dogs -- but it wasn't until afternoon (and I think they were grateful that we were finally back to longer walkies which Hubby really can no longer accomplish).  We took in a movie in the afternoon -- Hubby wanted to see Denzel in Flight (bah!  I lived with a drunk -- I don't want to watch one on the screen for over two hours -- I know what the behavior is like) and then we both headed home and to bed. 

Today it's rainy and turning cold but the boys and I headed out for a morning circle in the park -- they both produced pee and poop right away knowing that to do so would get us back out of the rain quickly.  It is good to know as we continue to age, that we can pull together enough to make sure this household continues to function no matter our current health situation, Hubby, me AND the boys.  I felt incredibly grateful for Hubby on Friday -- sometimes I'm impatient with this chronic heart condition but when the chips are down, we find we still can pull together as a family unit.