A friend of mine asked for tales of bad dates on her Facebook page today. I didn't have anything truly horrible, but I shared a couple stories. (I honestly don't have a lot of stories about dates to begin with; I didn't go on my first date until college, and Jason is only my second relationship that lasted longer than a couple weeks.)
One of the stories I shared was how at the end of a first date, I had told the guy I was feeling sick and was going to head home, he kissed me anyway.
Another was the time that I was out with my boyfriend at the time and started coming down with a migraine. I told him how awful I was feeling (indeed, he claimed that he had had migraines and understood). We were at a very expensive restaurant, though, and I felt that I should at least let him finish the meal. As I sat there, trying very hard not to throw up, he leaned across the table and said to me, "Smile! I want everyone to see my beautiful girlfriend." I should have realized then that the relationship couldn't last. But I felt like hell and was also taken aback because I hadn't had many people (who weren't related to me) tell me I was beautiful.
When Jason and I first started going out, I didn't want our first date to be a big meal. Both of the, ahem, gentlemen above took me out to dinner for our first date and I was so nervous that not only could I not eat, but I actually felt sick. (I found out later, after Jason and I had been together for at least a few months, that it was actually a medication I was taking at the time that was making me feel so bad.) So Jason and I did a light, easy ice cream date for our first date. Spoiler alert - it went well.
Thinking I had gotten those first date nerves out of the way, we decided on Italian for dinner followed by mini golf and arcade games for our next date. But, thanks to that medication (and, yes, maybe some nerves, too) I started feeling sick again. I told him what was going on but that I also decided to press on. He did NOT tell me to smile. (And he had already told me that I was beautiful.) After a round of mini golf and quite a bit of ski ball and air hockey, I decided it was a losing battle after all and decided to head home before I started feeling worse. Jason did NOT try to plant a kiss on the sick girl.
Shortly after this, I came down with mono. (Being 29, I was misdiagnosed with a sinus infection twice. No one expects a 29 year old to come down with mono.) Jason brought me soup and we watched rom-coms on the couch with my parents' cat.
Fast forward a couple years. I was no longer on the nerve-amplifying, nauseating, migraine-inducing medication. I hadn't had a migraine in a long time, but Jason knew about them. One afternoon, I came home with vertigo. It proceeded to get worse and worse - the egg drop soup he got me for dinner didn't stay down. I slept in the bathroom. Every time I moved, I threw up. I kept reassuring him it was just a migraine, I'd eventually feel better. After 12 hours, he called urgent care himself, having decided, no, this was not "just" a migraine. On their recommendation, he carried me out of the house and drove me to the ER. (They recommended the ER, he decided to do the carrying as I couldn't even stand.) It was not romantic. I was wearing my I-don't-feel-good dress - the one with holes in the arms. And I threw up in a grocery bag as soon as he set me down in the back seat of his car.
He's been to the hospital with me a lot, as it turns out. The vertigo uncovered a sinus issue that needed surgery. Surgery that he drove me to. Very early in the morning. As with coming down with mono late in life, I also had my wisdom teeth out late. Guess who drove me to and from and who bought me a milkshake on the way home. A couple years ago, I caught my shirt on fire. Guess who drove me to the burn unit multiple times. We had to stay overnight at the hospital when I got rear-ended last July. And then of course we had a second hospital trip last summer when a certain little someone decided she was not waiting for her due date and I woke up with contractions at 1:00 in the morning.
I feel like each of my blog posts should have a tie in to writing, and I guess this one doesn't really have one. I also feel like my posts should have a "point," a conclusion. That, I do have, and it's this: Ladies, find someone who won't tell you to smile. Find someone who understands when you feel sick and respects that. Find someone who will bring you something light and comforting when you feel bad. Find someone who will carry your puking ass out of the house and drive you to the hospital even when you're in denial about how bad off you really are. (Because there's a big difference in telling a woman to smile and be beautiful, and seeking needed medical attention.)
In sickness and in health... Poor Jason already had the "in sickness" well taken care of by the time we got married.