If I’d known my husband would make such a fuss about his Covid jab, I’d have gone on holiday

As booster season begins, so does the self-pitying from our other halves… Ladies, you have been warned

Forget mists and mellow fruitfulness. It’s Covid booster season which has meant starching my white apron, dusting off my fob watch; Nurse Ratched reporting for duty at Woods Towers. 
What can I say, other than I am not a natural caregiver. That’s not strictly true; sick puppies, floppy offspring, I’m on it like a car bonnet: bring me your tired and huddled masses. There’s just something about the performative huffing and self-pitying puffing noises men make when they are poorly that sends me rogue. 
My husband, freshly retired and, as far as I’m concerned, in need of something to do, was summoned for his annual jab last week. 
So I waved him off then spent the afternoon waiting, like an anxious lover scanning the horizon for her bloody yet unbowed sweetheart returning from the Napoleonic Wars. And return he did. 
Sure, his arm was really REALLY sore, actually, but a cup of tea – “Ooh, is that lemon drizzle?” – would be restorative. It didn’t last.
By the morning, he had a headache, aches, pains and as for the turbulence south of the equator; like the Drake Passage, best not go there.
Did I mention shivers? I doubt it. Frankly, I was already bored to the point of being struck off. Is that because I’m not a very good nurse or because he’s not a very good patient? See, judgment works both ways, folks. 
A couple of days in, a good friend called. She was appalled. “Please don’t tell my husband this. He’s getting his booster tomorrow; if he finds out getting sick is ‘A Thing’ he’ll keel over like a ninepin.”
Dear Readers, I stayed schtum. And yet he still succumbed to the sort of motley ragbag of low grade symptoms that makes a man feel wretched and his wife feel resentful. 
Her response? A lot better than mine. What? No, she hasn’t been running up and down the stairs with cold compresses and hot toddies. She’s driven to France.
Now at this point I’d like to say, please don’t be put off from getting your vaccination because I’m neither medically trained nor a social media nutter. My only conspiracy theory is that some men will insist on making an extravagant fuss.
I fully intend to get a booster if it’s offered to me, not least because I hope (against hope) it might cure the crippling nerve pain that runs up and down from knee to toe at random, fondly dubbed “Mummy’s Covid leg” by my children and restore my much-missed sense of taste and smell which disappeared in April 2020 and remain in abeyance. 
Could that be that’s why I have so little truck with my spouse’s side effects? Because I too am hurting? And until I heal myself, I can’t possibly look after anyone else? 
Well, I’ve thought about it, but no. Turns out I’m just an unfeeling monster who wishes she too had the presence of mind to book a ferry to Calais. Ladies, you have been warned. Oh, and I’ll have a big tin of cassoulet if you’re passing a supermarket, merci. For my convalescing husband, you understand.