Not very wifely of me, I admit

I have never liked blood and guts. I don't want it in my books, I don't want it in my movies, and I certainly don't want it in my life. I am also the sort of person who likes to be left alone if I am sick or in pain. Combine these two things and I think its fair to say that I am not the most sympathetic person to have around before/during/after a surgery. So it was D.'s misfortune to need hernia surgery this past Friday.

I think he was a little worried by the prospect beforehand but I don't have much patience for fretting over the inevitable so I just ignored the fussing. This did not endear me to him, I'm sure. Then he was horrified to learn that I had no intention of sitting in the waiting room for the several hours it would take between when he was taken back to be prepped for surgery (no one allowed to accompany adult patients to this, incidentally) until he was ready for release. I just told him I'd be happy to pick him up when he was ready to come home and headed merrily on with my errand-packed day. Not 10 minutes later I got a phone call from a nurse to confirm that I was indeed intending to come and collect him when he was ready to go. Ummm. No, I'd rather you send my seriously drugged post-op husband out on the road to walk home (it was *only* outpatient surgery after all). I reassured her I would pick him up when he was a rambling, drooling mess even though I was clearly a negligent wife who wouldn't even stay for the mere 5 hours he'd be in the hospital.

Once he got home, I was all for sending him to bed and ignoring him until he felt better. This is how I'd prefer to be treated and how he did treat me after my foot surgery several years ago when I wasn't even ambulatory. Again, I probably got marked down in the compassionate wife category for this.

The following day, since he seemed to be feeling rather decent, he got to go to T.'s baseball tryout and to R.'s dbeut dance show. Apparently the latter caused him some pain (the hard chairs, not the dancing) but because I am all about ignoring frailty, I just nodded and let the whining go in one ear and out the other. I then proceded to miss the fact that he was out of bed at least twice last night getting pain killers. I can't say I truly ignored this as I didn't even wake up at all. Miss Sensitivity, that's me.

And apparently my good wife score hit an all time low today when he asked me to check and make sure he'd gotten all of the dressing he was supposed to remove off. Before he even got halfway across the room, my eyes were closed and I was doing the visual equivalent of stuffing your fingers in your ears and chanting "Nah nah nah nah nah." I think he was a little offended I wasn't going to look at his battle wound but I felt compelled to point out that he had known me over half his life and he should know by now that I do not do yucky things. I didn't even look at my own foot after surgery, the scar still makes me wince, and he thought I was getting up close and personal with his incision? He must still be taking more pain killers than I realized!

So whoever out there is judging the Wife of the Year awards, just give me a shout about where to pick up my award, as long as it's nowhere near anything that will require me to act compassionate or sensitive or just to plain old look at yucky stuff.