My friend shares that her husband has been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. The medicine that helps, also hurts. His immunity will be suppressed, so he will be socially limited. What will that be like for her? For their life together?
I receive her text while sitting in Tony's doctor's waiting room. I am usually surrounded, on all of our doctor's visits by women who look healthy, who stand straight, accompanied by men who do not.
Do women go alone to their MD appts? Or are they less burdened by body breakdowns?
My mother was always grateful that my father's health faltered before hers. She dutifully cared for him. She suspected he wouldn't have done the same for her. But I believe if their rolls had been reversed, he would have risen to the occasion.
And yet, on this same morning in a large practice of orthopedic surgeons, an old, old, man, wheels in an even older woman. They speak loudly. When asked their birthdates, the man states the woman's: 1922. His is 1942. I suspect they both have appointments. He also announces that his mother (I suspect) has broken her hip five times in the last two months. The old, old, old, woman hollers, "And I'm still walking." Though clearly she isn't.
And yet, in our hospital service, we seem to encounter as many women patients with dutiful husbands as we do men with dutiful wives.
My observations aren't scientific, just emotionally measured in my momentary situations.
There is one sure conclusion in my pondering: women and men are equally vulnerable to physical breakdowns. And this conclusion helps me when I"m on the verge of impatience or repenting of my impatience--this could be me.
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