Kim, when it comes to differences between men and women when we get sick, I REALLY think that the men are MUCH, MUCH SMARTER than we are.
We are the stupid ones who try to show how TOUGH we are! And the way that women have been told that they can do anything a man can do, I honestly think that we are out and out mental retards for WE ARE NOT EQUALS and WE CAN NOT DO IT ALL!!!!!!!!
I am NOT superwoman and never was. My body is different from a man´s and I don´ve have the strength and stamina a man does and never did, even without the masto. Well, now that it´s out and active, I´ve EVEN LESS RESISTANCE THAN EVER!!!
And yet, we´re the dodo´s who PUSH ourselves BEYOND OUT LIMITS and HIDE IT because we´re afraid of being weaker as though it meant we were INFERIOR!! Somehow this is the Feminism Movement gone awry, for although we´ve been fed this stuff since the early 60s, for the majority of us, this is almost our entire lives now, we feel GUILTY for not being able to do it all!!
THIS IS SO, SO, VERY WRONG!!!!!!
Men are MUCH smarter than we are for when they are sick, they ARE SICK and they will call it quits and do nothing for as long as they need to in order to recuperate. Granted, you have exceptions to both how the women are and the men, but I´m talking generalities here, not specifics. Men, on the whole, will play patient whereas we women play MARTYRE and we will PUSH OURSELVES just to make sure that we´re not seen to be lying about in bed, for we correlate sickness as WEAKNESS.
Yes, I´m being a bit hard on us women, but I can remember when my mom would get the flu. It wasn´t often and I can´t say how many times she must have felt awful with a cold or an infection of some kind and she never talked about it and would push her way through it and make meals, etc. I´m not talking about this, for I too have pushed my way through 3 c-sections and colds and odd viruses with my 3 children depending on me. However, I´m talking about when we´re in a bad situation, not just the stupid reactings. I can remember my Dad taking over every now and again and my mom absolutely prostrate in the bed from having a bad flu or so. My Dad would put their bedroom as off limits, would jump down our throats if we made a noise above 1 decimal, and prohibited any kind of activity which might wake her or disturb her, including open rebellion against his cooking!
The entire household would walk on tip toe for fear of disturbing my mom and we wouldn´t see or hear from her as long as Dad was around to stand guard! And she would respect her sickness and stay in bed!
I think they had a much better idea of how to deal with illness than we do now in that neither sex considered women as Iron Ladies, invincible and strong. If you were sick, you were sick and that was all there was to it. You did what you could, but if you couldn´t there wasn´t a guilt trip that either you or your partner put on you.
So, Kim, I know how you think and feel for I too do this very same self-defeating behavior!
When I had to go into my hysterectomy 5 years ago, I had made the decision then that I was not going to do what I did with my 3 c-sections, but I was going to play the proper patient and NOT PUSH MYSELF!!!!! I´ve tried very hard ever since to follow this very same decision with my subsequent surgeries. Interesting is that with my open heart surgery, a surgery that really requires that very attitude, I couldn´t not push myself. Circumstances kept forcing me to disobey this decision and go in to work for brief periods, but for the most part I did respect it. Yet, with that surgery, the recovery is a long process and it took a full 18 months to really say I was recovered and back up to my pre-surgical strength. And having to push myself became a necessity in order to recoup that strength - babying myself would have been detrimental.
So, balance and common sense must rule.
But Kim, every now and again you need to remind your husband as well as yourself that YOU ARE SICK and living with an incurable disease. And you need to say it very seriously so that this hits home, for unless you do, they will never really get it, and neither will you, and that can be dangerous.
TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF - YOU ARE ALL YOU´VE GOT!!
Hugs!
Lisa