THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601110553
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
KERRY SAYS:
This is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel, Dave, but, with flu season upon us, I've got to ask you: What is it with guys when you get sick?
I admit to being a tad irrational on the subject, having just spent the past fortnight playing Florence Nightingale to the two males in my household. First Steve was struck with this nasty bug, then our 5-year-old son.
Steve moaned. The 5-year-old whined. Outside of that I could find very little difference in the adult and juvenile forms of male suffering.
Both required frequent nursing visits.
Steve fevered around for a day or so until collapsing in bed one night and refusing to get up in the morning.
``I'm too sick to move,'' he moaned from somewhere deep under the comforter. ``Call the office for me.''
By late afternoon he rallied a bit. Only hot-and-sour soup from his favorite Chinese restaurant would revive him.
Our son got it a few days later and began with this high-pitched noise that he emitted every hour on the hour during the night, and had every dog for blocks going berserk.
It sounded bad, but I didn't know how bad it was until the doctor listening to his lungs frowned.
``Sounds like Rice Krispies in there,'' he said, gesturing at the little guy's left lung.
``Yup, pneumonia,'' the doctor said. ``Sounds just like Rice Krispies.''
And so we snap, crackled and popped our way through the holidays.
Did I mention that I got sick, too? Probably not, since I didn't actually have time to enjoy my poor health. I got sick during the fourth day of Steve's confinement and a day or two before my son got it.
I felt near collapse by Christmas Eve morning. I had chills, a cough and fever. At 10 a.m. I crawled back into bed only to be disturbed by family members horrified by the prospects of a sleeping mother. Even Steve seemed stunned and had to rouse me once to ask where we keep the towels.
An hour later I decided I simply didn't have time to be sick until 1996.
In between making toast and Tang for the guys and preparing Christmas dinner, I'd gulp a handful of Motrin and spray my throat with some of that numbing stuff.
My daughter had an afternoon when she didn't feel well. The next morning she was fine.
``Mom,'' she asked, ``why is it men always get so much sicker than women?''
What would you tell her, Dave?
DAVE SAYS:
Jeez, Kerry, I think you inhaled some of that stuff that numbs your throat and it went to work between your ears. Your husband has the flu, your 5-year-old has pneumonia, and you want to know why they can't ``take it like a man.''
Just a few years ago, before antibiotics, those ailments were enough to put the boys' lights out forever. Now you begrudge them a little tea and sympathy.
Women have been repeating this old saw about men turning into little babies at the slightest sniffle for so long that even your 7-year-old daughter is buying into the myth. And that bugs me, because, if anything, the exact opposite is true.
More likely, it just seems that men get sicker than women because we don't make make a big deal about aches and pains until we are really, truly knocked off our feet. By influenza or pneumonia, to use your household as an example.
Women, meanwhile, have been convinced that their special physiology entitles them to claim distress, on average, up to 25 days per month as they battle pre-malady, post-malady, or present malady effects of a malady that men aren't allowed to mention. We only know all this because so many TV commercials are dedicated to its treatment.
A billion-dollar industry has grown up around women feeling ``a little off stride.'' (And each angry call or letter, fans, will only be proving the point.)
There is no male corollary to this, Kerry. We never see a pill ad on TV that stars two men, one of whom compassionately says to the other: ``Gee, Ted, you look a little off the mark today. When that happens to me, I always chase the blues away with a couple of tabs of Testosterol.''
Instead, we see a linebacker playing the division championship with a broken arm, or a hockey goalie back on the ice after getting eight stitches during a commercial break. Without painkillers.
Now I'm not saying men make the best patients, Kerry. But the odds are if one of your guys is flat on his back, that's probably where he oughta be. And if you just do whatever you can to him back to normal, you'll have every right to expect him to do the same for you. MEMO: Kerry Dougherty can be reached at 446-2302, and via e-mail at
kerryd(at)infi.net. Dave Addis can be reached at 446-2588, and
addis(at)infi.net. by CNB