i can hear my father now when i close my eyes, “people who don’t BELIEVE in allergies, don’t HAVE allergies.” it wasn’t that people who suffered terrible runny noses, red eyes and stuffed sinuses were making up their ailments…but rather, by treating those discomforts, acknowledging that they were there, the allergies persisted and the symptoms continued. clearly my father had found a hidden truth – after all, no one who lived in my house suffered.

we don’t get sick either, and apparently we also have a higher than average tolerance for pain. i never thought twice about these peculiar circumstances until ABN entered my life, allergies and all, and questioned what the difference was between what i referred to as, “feeling like crap” and the rest of the world knew as “sick.”

when i’m “feeling like crap” even as an adult, even this past week, after i was dizzy and puked – i refuse to acknowledge that i am sick. i just don’t feel right, maybe i ate something that didn’t agree with me (or the increasingly popular, maybe i’m pregnant). never sick.

mom: hello

me: hi mom

mom: what’s wrong

me: i’m not feeling well. i woke up dizzy and i just puked…i think i’m sick

mom: SHIT. that’s ridiculous, you can’t be sick.

hmmmm.

the same goes for getting hurt. we (meaning my brother and i) don’t. or didn’t. maybe it’s because we never played sports so those typical childhood injuries never occurred. maybe it’s because we never complained about anything (although that seems HIGHLY unlikely). maybe i have a higher tolerance for pain (especially annoying, moderate, irritating pain – which is yet another vote yay, in the on-going debate over whether or not to get a tattoo – but i digress) than the average girl.

this was made clear yesterday, when after six months of my knee “bugging me” i went to the doctor. he was not happy with me, apparently knees are not something that are supposed to be ignored. i’m now off to PT for six weeks and then we will reevaluate. he asked me how i could have ignored it for so long.

just to be clear my dad feels the same way about PT that he does about allergies.

it has been dawning on me slowly (sometimes it takes me a while to get around to realizing things i don’t really want to admit) that i judge people who get sick often, who complain about their bruises and sprains, who miss work because they are under the weather. its not news to me that i judge people; i do that openly and actively it (i think its connected to my obsession with all things celebrity)…its part of who i am. at least i admit it. it just came as a surprise to me that one of my measures for judging people is whether or not i consider their pain and suffering to be legit.

this all came to a head this past december. ABN woke up one morning “not feeling well.” always the compassionate wife (achem) i told him to go back to sleep and left for a work event, without thinking twice, without keeping my phone on me. two hours later i had a mostly incomprehensible voicemail from my usually cool and collected man telling me he was on the way to the hospital. assuming he was overreacting i went about my work until my co-workers (a group of jewish mothers) forced me out the door to meet him in the er.

oops.

by the time i arrived he was in quite the altered state, puking and in so much pain they had to give him valium – twice. turns out, he had a kidney stone. which i thought was a tummy ache. which i ignored and judged him for complaining about.

i wonder what this says about my future parenting skills (emphasis on the word future – distant future…sorry dad!).