Be nice to me...I may be your nurse someday

When I was a child I wanted to be a nurse. It's even something I've toyed with as an adult, the caring professions really appeal to me. This week however I've come round to thinking that perhaps I'm not entirely nurse material.

My husband came down with an illness on Tuesday night. I was ready to maim him by Wednesday lunch time and it now being Saturday? I could quite happily administer a lethal injection directly into a sensitive part of his body. By and large, he's not a complainer and he's rarely ill so I probably should cut him some slack but my patience has been sorely tested this week by his constant moaning. Oh the moaning. I've tried to be supportive - bringing him drinks, going to the chemist, checking on him, dealing with absolutely everything else so he doesn't have to but it has got to the point several times this week where I have just wanted to grab him around the neck and shout YES I BLOODY WELL KNOW YOU ARE ILL!

On Thursday night my darling 6 year old decided to deposit the spaghetti bolognese she had eaten for dinner all over her bed and carpet at 2am in the morning. Her screaming woke my other child up and Mr M dragged himself out of bed to be a little bit of help but had gone back to bed before I'd even nearly got everything tidied up and children settled again. My daughter was perfectly healthy the next day, no sign of illness so I think it was just a blip but of course, couldn't send her to school having been sick so had to cancel the one thing I was doing for myself this week - a trip to the archives in Birmingham to do some research. A trip I had been looking forward to for about five weeks, where the documents had been waiting for me.  Clearly this put me in a stinker of a mood yesterday, what with moping husband and hyperactive and bored child under my feet at home all day.

Throw into this the fact that I have had a migraine since Tuesday night. It started as a silent migraine where I lost my vision in my right eye for a good 30-40 minutes. I could barely get a little bit of concern or sympathy out of my husband so that might explain why I'm feeling less than sympathetic to his plight right now. My migraine is still lingering and nobody has asked me once how I am feeling.

It irks me that men get to mope around the house, feeling sorry for themselves, expecting buckets of concern but when us mums are feeling rough we just have to carry on.  When I had flu (actual flu, not just "I've got a cold but I'm calling it flu") I still had to drag myself out to do the school-run, sort homework, packed lunches, dinner, wash uniforms etc. The world doesn't stop when a mum is poorly - wouldn't it be nice to be able to wallow around in bed feeling sorry for ourselves?!   Am I alone in feeling like this or do you all have wonderful husbands who take time off work when you're poorly and allow you to recuperate in peace and quiet? I'm sure it doesn't happen very often!

I'm on Day 5 of my husbands mystery virus and I'm all out of tolerance. Today I am wearing my "don't talk to me" face. Conversation is monosyllabic and I'm hoping this will keep everyone away from me. It's for their own good really as I am demonstrating signs of The Rage.

It may be time to do a ward round and discharge the patient. In more ways than one.

PS I'm no longer considering a career in the caring professions.