Man-cold or the real deal?

My husband is sick and every woman on the planet that resides with a man understands that this is not an ideal situation.

It started Sunday afternoon. We went to the gym for our aerobic workout and in the parking lot as we climbed back into the car, Dallas mentioned that he thought he may have overdone it a bit. I didn't immediately reply and not because I didn't have an opinion. I did (of course) but I was preoccupied with trying not to vomit from my own exertions. My most recent kick these days is to give the gym everything I've got because I'm only fooling myself if I slack off blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I digress. The point was that Dallas' admission didn't raise any red flags for me. In fact, since the Daytona 500 was scheduled to start, I figured he was just giving me notice that he intended to become a part of the furniture for the afternoon.

Sunday night after picking at his dinner, Dallas mentioned that he was achy and every few minutes, he'd clear his throat with this short, raspy, old womanish cough like he was trying to dislodge a hairball. I was skeptical. In a very loving manner I might have let, "hypochondriac" slip through my lips. We went to bed early Sunday night because, you know, we're in our forties.

And then we coughed. Both of us. Inexplicably. For the better part of the next eight hours.

Monday morning came and we were both haggard from a fitful night. I cleaned up well. Dallas didn't. He looked awful and felt even worse. He made the decision to go to work though, because the culture at his job is such that you have to be sucked into the vortex of a tornado or held hostage in a bank heist or dying from ebola to be considered legitimately absent. His office is worse than a daycare center as a hotbed of germs. It's bloody ground zero. Look, I understand a healthy work ethic but there is nothing heroic or admirable about going in and sharing your diseased ass with your colleagues.

I got home from work on Monday feeling like I might be coming down with something. I was lethargic, achy and generally irritable which isn't a huge departure from my perimenopausal self but enough that I took note. Dallas was a train wreck. He walked in the door raging with fever and went straight to bed. For the next fourteen hours or so, he thrashed and shivered and sweat. Tuesday morning arrived and he was so sick, he'd become apathetic. Food? Out of the question. Liquid? Was an IV an option?

At this point, I felt just the slightest bit guilty because I was less than supportive on Sunday night. Even his dad questioned whether he was experiencing a "man cold" or something more serious. But true to form, my husband doesn't do anything half-cocked including the flu. This morning, the fever seemed to have broken but he's barely able to lift his head off his pillow. He mentioned that he thought he should go into work and then I hit him with a lamp. He passed out went back to sleep after that.