Looking for a Shoulder to Cry On

The old joke is that if men were the ones who had all the babies, everyone would be an only child. For indisputable proof I present my husband, a.k.a The Jewish Patient.

When The Jewish Patient has a cold, or god forbid a million times the flu, it's as if he has an incurable and painful and terminal--I know I already said incurable but I cannot stress this enough--disease: The moaning, the wailing, the constant complaining, and that's just when he's coming down with it. By the time it's full-blown, with a fever and upset stomach just to make my life a living hell, his suffering knows no bounds.

Forced into the role of Florence Nightingale on our wedding day by that business about "in sickness and in health," I tend to him with the tissues and the lozenges and the hot tea with honey and lemon and the ice water and the heating pads and the extra pillows, all the while thinking, "Please God, don't let this man ever get really sick." Well, now he needs an operation on his torn rotator cuff and I'm hoping to go deaf before his surgery. The moaning, the wailing, the constant complaining, and this is three weeks before the surgery; what will it be like after?

In hopes of finding a superior physician who will not mess up and cause my husband to A, complain forever or B, always walk with a limp, I have turned my attention towards finding the best shoulder surgeon east of the Rockies. Happily, I located a group of specialists associated with Harvard University-- each one of them God's Gift To Shoulders--a mere two-hour drive from where we live, and suggested The Jewish Patient see one of them. He said that I am making too big a deal about this and that he'd rather see the guy whose office is only 12 minutes away right here in Maine, "America's Vacationland."

Oy vay.