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I don’t like sick.

I know, who does, right?

When the Beans are sick, it’s a different story. The mommy bone kicks in and I just know what to do. I am a robot and the foul vomit and offensive diapers don’t phase me. I stave off queasiness and revulsion because I know that my girls need me to comfort them and to let them know that it will be alright soon. Where I would otherwise run, here I stand my ground. I am the calm in the room and the rock on which their tears are soaked.

But when it is anyone else, I turn into jelly. I don’t like sick.

When a co-worker or friend has a cold, I politely toss them a tissue box from a safe distance. When someone sneezes or coughs around me, I hold my breath for twenty seconds, in the hopes that I didn’t inhale their sick.

When the dogs are sick, I do the same. J has to take care of them…I just can’t bring myself to do it. My skin crawls, my throat retches. I get clammy hands.

Arisa was always the one to take care of us when we were sick. In the medical field, she was always fascinated by the unwell and wouldn’t hesitate to catch puke in her hands or wipe a sweaty brow with her sleeve. She was the one who nursed us all back to health during the Stomach Flu of ’96 (which consisted of a hospital trip and J, my then boyfriend, mooning the staff in a haze of dehydrated delirium). Me…I stayed far away.

Which is why, yesterday afternoon, while sitting in the emergency room, waiting to be called, I looked at J and said, “You don’t have a will. This is why we need a will.”

J looked at me in shock. “Why would you say that? You’re telling me I’m going to die.”

“Well…what if it’s really infected or something? And they have to cut off half of your side?”

“You know, you could really be supportive right now. I’m in a lot of pain.”

“I’m just saying!”

“Well stop!”

You see, J had a gooey. Last week, it was just a little bump. And when I saw it on his side one night while he was playing Horsey with the girls, I poked it. And I said, “Ew, girls! Come look! Daddy has a gooey!” The girls promptly jumped off him and began inspecting.

“Ew! A gooey!” They chanted, prodding him with their sticky, chocolatey hands. I giggled. J squirmed. They nudged him again. It became a game for them until he couldn’t take it anymore and he swooped them up and into the bathroom for night night rituals.

Days ago, it became red and swollen. On Wednesday he could barely walk. “My gooey hurts.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Suck it up and help me with the dishes.” I always tell J to walk it off, to suck it up. In my twisted mind, he’s not allowed to be sick. He’s only allowed to be invincible.

Yesterday morning, he asked me to call for a doctor’s appointment. Yesterday afternoon, looking at him sitting there, grimacing and uncomfortable, I suggested that I take him to the emergency room. But not before we stopped off for lunch, because I was starving. He winced when I said that, but my hunger distracted me.

While we were in the waiting room, I took pictures of the gooey and sent them to Arisa. I called her up and laughed with her about the Purple Nurple while J writhed in pain.

It turned out to be what they are sure is a spider bite that went bad. He’s on antibiotics and pain medication right now and is feeling a little better. In what seems like a bit of karma, the physician’s assistant gave me a homework assignment. I’m to drain the wound by putting gauze into it for the next two days. Yes, I said “into it”. And, as my skin is crawling, I won’t further explain what that means.

I teased him last night that I was going to put the photos that I had taken up on the site so that everyone could be equally disgusted. He just looked at me and shook his head.

I think I am this way about illness because I can’t come to terms with the idea of someone I love in pain or ill. It’s another one of those control freak quirks of mine. I can’t fix them, so I avoid them. Or I make fun of them. Or I get my Beans to poke them.

The idea that J is somehow human and not a superhero that can never be hurt is not something that I want to ponder for longer than necessary. So, I tell him to suck it up and I sock him in the shoulder. And I wish more than anything that I could take his pain away.