The Patience of Job

My poor poor husband. In the past two weeks my husband has had to endure some pretty serious health issues, a garage fire (totalling our garage) and now plumbing. My kitchen sink was not draining properly (well not at all actually) but I did not want to tell him so while he was outside *suppose to be resting and relaxing* I was plunging like crazy. I was trying to watch for him and trying to plunge so he would not catch me and ask me what was going on. Well we have two doors off the kitchen and while I was watching the one I thought he went out he came in the other. Of course he says "What are doing? What is wrong?" I said, "Oh I just have a little clog and I am fixing it right up." Well it proved not to be a little clog it was a replace the 10 foot long cast iron pipe drain (original plumbing no doubt in a very old house). The replacing involved shimming under the crawl space and ALL the way under the house...shiver shiver...spiders...all sorts of nasties. He had to cut the 10 foot cast iron pipe from two places and then we had to pull it out. While replacing the water pipe the copper water line burst so then he had to FIX that and actually the copper water line was the most physcial and difficult job because he had to do something to the copper that involved a tool and LOTS of brute strength. While he is under the crawl space water is spewing out of the copper water line (despite the water being off) so not only is he crawling around in dirt and bricks but also wet mud. In addition he had to wiggle around lots and lots of wires. Which I am so glad that he shut the power down. So while he was under there he also tacked up some wires that back in the old days they did not feel necessary to have them tacked up (there is another term for it but I don't remember what he told me). It was very very hard work but not one angry word came out of his mouth. Just the fact that he had the worst plumber's helper every (me) should have made him cry out in anger. As plumber' s helper I had to reach in the crawl space but not enter it and hold the light...also bring him tools and such. I also took it upon my myself to offer all sorts of plumbing advice. Which he endured quite nicely. I also had to use a saw zaw to cut a piece of PVC. The saw zaw scares me! I also had to feed in and out the old 10 foot pipe and the new 10 foot pipe. Once my husband did all the stuff downstairs (6 hours mind you and that was AFTER working all day) he went back upstairs and finished the hookup under the kitchen sink. During the upstairs process I was required to hold a 5-6 inch piece of PVS while he saw zawed it by about 2 inches. He said I could hold it or saw. Earlier when I sawed I had no control over the saw and was scared to use it again so I opted for holding. Before he started I begged quite sincerely for him not to lop off my hand with the saw zaw. He said, "Don't you trust your husband?" I told him it was not him I did not trust it was the saw zaw. He said he was born with a saw in his hand and nothing would happen. And obviously by this very lengthy post he did not lop off any part of my hand. Ordinarly he would have gone to the garage and used something out there to hold it....but........
Surely nothing else can happen to this poor man. He is still dreadfully sick and is now down from 173 (less then two weeks ago) to 155. Tonight the boys are coming over to work on the garage and he is FORBIDDEN to do any further work this week. Next week he gets Friday and Monday off and he I am going to chain him to the couch.

Now I feel kinda shallow posting this after all my husband has gone thru but because I am a shallow woman I will... 3 1/2 mile run successful on Thursday...no stopping at all...not even on the hill...however my knees have been talking to me since then...not screaming at me just a nice polite...hey can you take off about another 15 pounds you crazy woman you are killing us.