My Amazing Wife

It’s Monday, March 16, 2009. Normally I’d be at work right now, pretty busy seeing a lot of patients. But today I’m at home. While I love being close to my family (recall my one other blog so far, explaining the title of the website) I daresay that simply being close to my family today isn’t the reason I’m here. I happened to have been struck quite viciously and without any warning by a particularly nasty stomach virus – at precisely 6:30 PM on March 12, 2009 – and it has left me rather incapacitated from not only the banal gastrointestinal issues but a singular fatigue that left me unable to rise from my bed longer than it took to head to the bathroom, do my business, and stagger back. I’ve had a few surgeries in the past and was hospitalized for one of them and even then I don’t ever recall feeling quite that ill, quite that helpless; it’s an unpleasant and humbling experience, to say the least.

My reason for even mentioning this short (thankfully!) part of my life is not to dwell on my personal health but to mention someone I am eternally grateful to God for having brought into my life: my wonderful wife, Sarah. For several weeks the internal medicine department of physicians at the clinic where I work have desired to have a five-hour (!) evening meeting to have a good heart-to-heart discussion among colleagues about varying agenda items. Well, I had signed up our house to be that meeting place, and the meeting was to take place on Friday, March 13. And all night, starting on Thursday, March 12, I was up every 30 minutes or so in the bathroom, and my gracious wife was there for me. On top of all that, she had worked all week long planning a menu, shopping for ingredients, cooking, and scrubbing our house from top to bottom to temporarily clean the widespread detritus that is necessarily a part of a home with two young children. So here I was, unable to move from my bed unless compelled to do so by my wretched bowels, and unable to go to work as a result, leaving Sarah with not two, but three persons incapable of caring for themselves without her help. With me miserably lying in bed, Sarah spent all day Friday directing the care of the two kids, cleaning, cooking, and fielding phone calls, all the while checking on me every so often, bringing me water or Gatorade, and generally giving me support. When she learned that the meeting was going to occur at a different colleague's house (I guess nobody wanted what I got – can’t imagine why not!) she gathered all the food together and took it an hour early to the other house, set up everything, and acted as hostess for my partners who met there without me. Needless to say, the reports I got over the weekend and today on the food have been nothing but stellar. One person highly dislikes couscous, but Sarah’s amazing recipe was quite delicious to him; another person disliked anything resembling artichokes, but she loved a vegetable dip which included that ingredient. Several people were known to have taken plates home with them of leftovers after the meeting was over.

The rest of the weekend was much the same: I remained quite ill and very weak and bedridden; my wife found the energy to care for me and our two young kids for an additional 48 straight hours. I did not get to witness much of it, as I was asleep a good part of the time – and that sleep is a big reason why I can write this blog today, for without it I would still, I am sure, be ill. Sarah got very little sleep – only she knows exactly how much – as she was up with the kids at night with their needy cries. I feel substantially better today, and certainly plan to return to work tomorrow. I don’t know if I could have done what she did this past weekend, though I would have tried. I think God makes women with a special ability that kicks into high gear when their families need their nurturing the most. I thank God that He gives women that ability. And, at this moment as I look on the other side of my bed and I see my precious wife, sound asleep, I thank God once again that He has given her to me.

Joe Scott