ArcaMax

My husband and I both got sick at the same time, with the same cold and all the same symptoms. The difference was, I made dinner, went grocery shopping and did the laundry, while he lay on his deathbed hovering between a congested coma and near-certain demise by sniffles. While this vast pendulum swing between my cold and his might confound doctors, to me it was obvious: I had a regular cold, and he had a "man cold."

I've written here before about the times my husband has had a "man cold" ... when we weren't sure if he was indeed going to make it to his next birthday, or even the weekend. When the kitchen counter had been overtaken by so many cold remedies it looked like an aisle at CVS. When he appeared too weak to even pick up the TV remote but could still miraculously find his way to the quart of Haagen-Dazs in the freezer. I've never taken these situations lightly ... except when I'm sick at the same time. At these times, when I'm folding laundry and he expresses a wish to cut off his head and throw it out the window, I offer to open the window for him.

Having been through a 36-hour labor before giving birth to a giant baby -- twice -- I know a little something about discomfort. I traveled for work with a broken foot, was running (or, rather, hobbling) errands a month after a knee replacement, and was writing a book two weeks after surgery to repair a hiatal hernia. We've both had COVID-19, which wasn't much fun either, but I've never had a "man cold," so clearly I don't really know how miserable a person can be until I walk a mile in his germ-infested slippers.

His colds have been so bad that he has been forced to consult WebMD to make sure there is nothing more serious going on. Unconvinced, he will then seek actual medical attention. Even after the doctor assures him it is just a cold, he will still insist that it must be more serious than a cold and contemplates calling in the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force to test him for possible Martian cold viruses that might have arrived via meteorite in the Midwest and somehow gotten into his system in New Jersey.

Still, I am not without empathy. This is, after all, the man who held my hand through 36 hours of labor, carried me to the bathroom after my knee surgery and made me smoothies for a month after my hernia repair. The least I could do was warm up his soup, buy him more tissues and make his funeral arrangements in the chance that he did not recover from his "man cold."

As miserable as we are, though (me for different reasons than him), when we're both sick there is some good news. While the "man cold" is unparalleled in intensity, it is, fortunately, relatively short in duration. This is good for both my husband and myself. For him, it means a small amount of time when he is veritably at death's door. For me, it means a short amount of time hearing about it.

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Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, "Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble," available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.

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