to feel sightly neglected...

[MarianneEvans]

I have been battling a virus since before Xmas. It's possibly whooping cough as though the cold symptoms are mostly better, I am continuing to get these very tiring coughing fits. The GP has said to wait another week and then have a chest X-ray. I am wondering if it's whooping cough. The coughing is particularly bad when I lie down at night

It has made Christmas harder work than usual. My husband through a wobbly when I went to bed for an hour's rest before a party we were giving, because he felt overwhelmed by the responsibility for preparing some food - home-made garlic bread, that sort of thing - on his own.

There have been a couple of longish drives. One to see my parents, another yesterday to take my daughter back to university. On each occasion I've done my share of the driving but it has left me particularly tired.

Last night was also particularly exhausting because when we got back at around 5pm, there was Twelfth Night clearing up to do. I'd also promised my daughter I would look in her cleared-up room for a mislaid/lost dental retainer.

What seems to grate particularly at the moment with me is my husband's special interest. He goes to two classes on a Wednesday and Thursday night, and he went off to his Thursday one as usual at just after 6.

I'd said I would cook something so we could eat together when he got back - assuming for some reason he'd return by around 8 or 8.30 at the latest, when the class finished, rather than going on to the pub with classmates. It was a wrong assumption, and he got back at 9.30.

I was very short with him when he came back cheerfully talking about his friends from the class and the joys of walking back in the cold night. I've been out very little since the virus struck, other than essential family stuff. The coughing means I can't go to the cinema or to my normal exercise class. I left a New Years Eve party at 10pm, because I was coughing so much.

I realise that the world can't stop because I am feeling ill, but I am just not feeling very cared for.

[Thattimeofyearagain]

. He needs to be told how you are feeling.

[SheldonCRules]

I'd be cross if I'd cooked and he hadn't had the decency to say he would be late but I'd have expected him to go to his hobbies etc as usual as it's just a cough. If well enough to cook, drive etc you didn't need him to stay home just because you can't go out.