Day #9 - Medically Speaking

There are a flurry of text messages.

What time are you coming home?

Are you working late?

I think I may go play basketball. I should be home around seven if no one is there, or eight if there are.

I love you. I'll see you when I get home.

I am concerned about practicalities like dinner and the financial discussion we need to have. It's not anything terrible like hiding $50,000 worth of debt until after the marriage or anything like that, but I did learn that with marriage comes the loss of some of my freedom. For instance, prior to our marriage, I had left a certain small percentage of my meager 401(k) to my mother. I learned today that I can now not do that without the New Husband's permission. I also learned that I cannot simply deposit the wonderful wedding gifts we received into my checking account because it is not a joint account. I can either provide him with access to the account, thus merging our finances and making it our account or he can sign a waiver allowing the checks to be deposited into an account to which he has no access. Ah, how marriage complicates things.

But these are things that would have to wait until I've dug myself out of the email at work and until he's returned home from playing basketball.

We arrive at our building at much the same time. I am crossing the parking lot and I see him drenched in sweat, carrying his basketball with a gym bag around his neck. Since when did the New Husband turn into Basketball Mule?

"Hey hon, how was your game," I asked.

"Good. It was good. I think I jammed my thumb, though."

"Can you move it?"

"Yeah, but it hurts. I was mismatched. Imagine me playing against Shaq."

"Well that's not right."

"Hey, that's how the game goes sometimes."

"So, do you want to go to Urgent Care?" I had just uttered his least favorite word combination.

"No way."

"Okay," I said, hesitantly. We had dinner, leftovers from our aggravating dinner at Polcari's the night prior with our Best Man. Aggravating because as soon as we entered the restaurant, a hostess decided to snottily share her personal opinion about the New Husband's choice of sports jersey. But I digress.

After dinner, he mentioned that his thumb was really bothering him. I've got a year or so of CNA work under my belt that comes in useful at times like these, but it also means that there is less of an inclination to get real help when it may actually be needed. A quick refresh of the memory tells me that he needs to ice it, get a brace and take some naproxen. Off to Walgreens we go!

When we get back, I fill a plastic cup with crushed ice and instruct him to keep his thumb in there for a few minutes and alternate between ice and no ice every few minutes for about twenty minutes or so. He falls asleep with his thumb in the ice, but not before I learn that this is going to impact him pretty extensively because he is left-handed.

"Of course you're not left-handed," I argue. "I never see you use your left hand for anything."

"Give me a pen then," he said. He held his arm up to show me how he writes. "Left. Hand."

"Damnit! Why didn't I know that?"

"I don't know what you don't know. You're right-handed. Why do I know that?"

"Well that's because statistically you'd have a better chance of guessing that I'm right-handed than I'd have of guessing you're not."

"What?"

"Nevermind. I can't believe I didn't know that. I'm a terrible wife."

"No you're not."

"I must be. How could I not know something like that?"

"It's fine. I think it's funny actually."

"I don't." My mind starts racing about a million other things I realize I don't know. Like his blood type. And an extensive summary of his medical history. Any surgeries he's had. Oh my God, I think to myself, What if he was ever in an accident and I needed to tell an ER nurse this kind of stuff?

I can tell you his waist size. His favorite meals. How you have to keep his towel closest to the shower curtain so he can wipe his face after he washes his hair. How great he is at taking care of me when I'm sick. How fabulous it is that he does laundry.

But God help him if he needed a transplant or something serious happened because I wouldn't have the answers.