Just a few days ago, I was talking about My Spouse Won’t Go To The Doctor and the difficulties we cope with when these situations come up. Monday night, I was confronted with this particular situation head on again. As a mother and a wife, it’s rare that the needs of those different roles come into conflict with each other – but Monday was a different story.
Monday Morning
My daughter woke up with a relatively high fever Monday morning. It’s important to note that she rarely, if ever runs fevers, even when she’s had very bad ear infections she hasn’t run a fever. I spent the day keeping her quiet, making sure she drank plenty of water and treating the fever. It was a hard day and she doesn’t like being sick or being so fatigued that she spends a great deal of time sleeping.
Monday Evening
Late in the afternoon, my husband came home from work early because his mouth was hurting. He was in excruciating pain. He’s been having tooth pain on and off for months, but every time I suggested he take it to a dentist, he was always putting it off. Monday night, he was paying the price for that. By 6 p.m., I’d called about a dozen dental offices, all of which were closed. He was in no condition to drive and our daughter was sleeping, so I had to pack her and him both into the car to take him to an urgent care facility.
At the Doctor’s Office
At the doctor’s office, my husband got examined and then they told him they were going to give him a shot for the pain and we made arrangements for him to be seen by dentist first thing the next morning. In the meanwhile, my husband is afraid of shots and always has been. He needed me in the room with him for the shot, which meant I had to get my daughter out of the car and take her inside as well. She didn’t want to be there and while we were all three in the room together, she demanded to know why she had to share me with Daddy – he had his own Mommy after all.
I must have been tired, because that was about the funniest thing I’d heard all day. I explained to her that I was her mommy and I was Daddy’s wife. They both needed me and I needed to be there for both of them, for that to happen – I needed for all of us to be together for that to happen. I love being a wife and I love being a mother – rarely do those roles collide in a way that is hard for me to balance, but when they are both sick and they are both in need, it can be very hard to put one in front of the other.
We’re still battling her fever (she’s getting better) and my husband went to the dentist, he has to finish his antibiotics before they repair the damaged tooth and in the meanwhile, I’m running on fumes and five minute naps, but we’ve got a fragile balance.
Do your roles as wife and mother collide from time to time?
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