Editor’s Letter
Being raised by a nurse for a mother has unavoidable effects on your life.
You spend your early childhood thinking that Santa Claus lives in a walk-in freezer lined with bags of blood, thanks to school holidays spent playing with the lab technicians at the Blood Bank. (How I am not more psychologically damaged is beyond me!) From a young age you know all about the birds and the bees (and can smirk knowingly to yourself as your friends talk of storks and how kissing makes you pregnant), and are well aware of the need for self administered breast exams. I spent an entire pre-adolescent night crying because I thought I had breast cancer because I had discovered a lump… It later turned out to be nothing more than a perfectly innocent rib!
And finally, you learn that very few ailments in life cannot be treated with the liberal administration of either salt, vitamins or Panado. And should any of these or a combination of all of them not work, then – and only then – will a trip to the doctor be considered. As a result of this – and growing up watching my mother power through her days irrespective of colds, headaches or tummy bugs – I have developed a rather no nonsense approach to illness and, in particular, to that most ridiculous of conditions: Man Flu.
In my head, I would love to be a nurturing and caring girlfriend when faced with an under-the-weather partner; to be the type who morphs overnight into a superior version of Florence Nightingale and is happy to spend all hours gently mopping brows, fluffing pillows and cooing soothingly over my significant other. More often than not, though, the drooping puppy dog eyes and declaration of “I’m sick!” tends to bring out the worst in me and I find myself rattling a bottle of Panado and desperately wanting to say things like “Buck up” and “Power through”. Don’t get me wrong. Should my darling man actually befall anything remotely serious – like, say, typhoid or a flesh eating disease – I would be the first to nurse him lovingly back to health. But a slight sniffle and the hang dog look of Man Flu does nothing but get my back up.
I have, however, recently discovered that Man Flu may indeed have less to do with psychology and an over-mothered childhood than I had previously thought. Apparently recent research has discovered that men may in fact be more prone to catching diseases. This is because the body’s immunity has been linked to our X chromosomes and, as we all learnt in biology class, women have two of those and men have only one. This means that they may, in fact, have a legitimate reason for every sniffle or slight cough morphing into the dreaded Man Flu!
So the next time my man looks at me beseechingly over a box of tissues, I will endeavour to try my best not to lob a bottle of Vitamin C at him, but to give him hugs and extra X’s instead. After all, he can’t help it that he is missing some of his!
Nicky
A South African Icon
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