A Young Wife’s Tale

Being the well spouse or caregiver is hard. I’m not going to sugar coat it for anyone. David’s psoriatic arthritis has been fairly stable lately, praise God. I hope this post is an encouragement to other well spouses out there, dealing with the frustrations of chronic illness.

I love my husband. We have a happy marriage, but lest you think I don’t ever get tired of taking care of David, here are some things I’ve asked David, in my mind or out loud.

*Why did you wait until I was asleep to ask me to rub your back?

*Why didn’t you tell me you were running low on your medication? You’ve been out for a week! No wonder you’ve been so cranky.

If you follow me on Twitter you know I was really sick over the weekend. Friday afternoon, I started having trouble with my right eye. Eventually, I realized it was conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye. I have never had conjunctivitis, even as a child. David thinks I got it from 3D glasses at the early screening of Tron we went to. Eww…

So, Friday night we picked up some over the counter eye drops with a homeopathic remedy for pink eye. David was feeling pretty good, and around seven o’clock we worked out together. By eight o’clock my throat was hurting. By nine I had body aches and a fever. I took some ibuprofen, but I continued to get worse.

Saturday morning, I woke up very sick. David had to bring me food and help me get dressed and out of bed. Usually, it’s the other way around. I’m the caregiver. The well spouse.

I have failed as a caregiver. This is really an epic fail. When David first went gluten free, I was so careful to read labels. I got a little more comfortable as time went on. When David went dairy free as a part of his anti-inflammation diet, I was cooking everything from scratch anyway, so I wasn’t as careful. There are only a few prepackaged items David eats now. One is tortilla chips, the other is cereal.

The cereal David has been eating has gluten.Thank you Arthritis Ashley for pointing this out to me. I completely forgot about malt.

I don’t know that I’ve ever used David’s arthritis as an excuse to get out of something, but I have said these words a few times, “Honey, I’m not glad you have arthritis, but I’m we don’t have to go to X because of your arthritis.” Terrible, I know. It’s so difficult for us to get out and do stuff, you’d think I’d jump at every opportunity to leave the house.

Today is Day 2 of the SITS Girls Back to Blogging event. Thank you to the event sponsors Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath and Florida Builder Appliances. Today’s assignment is to re-upload a post you wish more people had read and explain why it was important to you.

I originally published this on October 23, 2009, and called it, “I Didn’t Kill My Husband”.

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I didn’t kill my husband. Let me just get that out there. David is alive. And so am I. For that we are truly thankful.

Things got pretty ugly last night. David gave himself his third Humira injection. You may recall the first injection occurred at the rheumatologist’s office. The nurse helped David give it to himself. The second one was two weeks ago at home, and it took him about an hour to do it. We were screaming at each other.