Being sick AND married

So my cold is still hanging on. I am becoming one with it. I don't remember what it's like to not have this cold, so I live my life as if we are at ease with each other's presence. Zach, on the other hand, is having the harder time of it. He resorted to sleeping on the sofa bed in a sleeping bag twice this past week. He usually makes his way out of the bedroom in a huff around midnight. Apparently I snore and cough and move around a lot in my sleep. I'm not too offended. I was nowhere to be found when he was throwing up two weeks ago. Nowhere in the vows did it say anything about being physcially present during sickness. You can honor, love, and support someone from any, safe distance. This is about self-preservation. Not only that, but if Zach does catch my cold, then I'll have to hear about it for the following week or two. To not have to deal with that is totally worth having that cold, empty spot in the bed next to me. It took me about 2 years to get used to sharing my bed. Now I stay on my side even when Zach's not there.

My bronchial airways are inflamed, and I'm grateful for it!

Last Friday Zach came down with a stomach flu. For those of you who don't already know, I have a huge fear of throwing up. I can count on one hand the amount of times in my life I have thrown up, and I remember all the details of when, where, and how I felt. I went from the ages of 9-21 without throwing up once. That's 12 years (reference Seinfeld here. I would provide a link if I were more computer savvy or less lazy). When Zach threw up the first time last Friday, he thought it might have been too much beer on an empty stomach, but after the second, third and fourth time, I grew suspicious. I went out to sleep on the sofa with the pillow over my head. Poor Zach wasn't getting any sympathy from me. I even considered sleeping in the car. The next day I left the house for a few hours and returned with Lysol, gloves, and gatorade. I stayed about 10 feet away from Zach and talked for a while. I then scrubbed the apartment. For the next 3 days, I was hypersensitive to every noise my stomach made. I was anxious and didn't eat much. I ate crackers and drank gingerale for two days (I exaggerate a bit) , even after Zach was eating chicken marsala and chocolate cake again. I didn't get the stomach flu (knocking on wood), but I did end up with bronchitis, probably the after effect of not eating enough and lowering my resistance. I am content with my bronchitis. And Zach is not the least bit afraid of catching it. That's love.

Skunk or Gas Leak?

Early Wednesday morning Zach and I woke up to the phone ringing. It was only 4:45, too early for Zach's father to be calling. Our landlords, who live downstairs from us, came on the answering machine asking us to pick up. Zach answered, said "Okay", and hung up. "We need to get dressed. There might be a gas leak and we need to be ready to get out of the house". Something did smell a little funny. We got dressed in record time and ambled our way down the stairs. At the bottom was our landlord's grown son, who spends the night from time to time, with a scowl on his face like a teenager's. He mumbled something that sounded like a hello. We all stupidly stood in the kitchen wondering if we should go outside or not. The emergency guy at the gas company didn't say we had to go outside. As the smell worsened, we went out. "It smells like skunk", said our landlady. Zach and I agreed. Was it a skunk? Half an hour later, the emergency guy showed up. Apparently he had to get dressed first. At any rate, it was determined that we did indeed have ourselves a skunk. We found the hole he had dug into the storage shed attached to the garage. Thankfully it wasn't a gas leak. Even though it was just a skunk, we were all a little too nonchalant about the situation. I had even gone back upstairs to grab my bag, and I flipped the lightswitch on and off several times. Friends of mine did experience a gas leak once. The smell was overwhelming, enough to give you a headache. No one knew it was a gas leak until Liz passed out early one morning before her final exam. On her way to the exam, she started to feel better. When she returned home, she felt worse again. Her sister Annie attributed all her morning headaches to quitting smoking. A window had been cracked most of December with a bottle of detergent. When the detergent ran out, the window was shut, and that's when Liz passed out. They were lucky. We were lucky.