The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-25
Home Nursing
Keep The Sick Room TranouiI
By N. JESSIE LEIrcH

A~SF AhU ohSh AbuUhh 1HaHQuA
 A woman stood in the middle of the big bedroom floor and looked about her helplessly.
 The man in the bed sighed, swore softly, made a painful lunge across the bed and wrapped himself in the bed clothes.
 "Oh Harry!' said his wife, look ing more disconsolate than ever. II just got that bed made and now look at it The doctor will be here in a minute. Really and truly I don't know what l am going to do. Sickness prostrates me. am as useless as baby. I can't bear to see you suffer and my head aches and I haven't had Il bite to eat to- day." S
 Laura Hope was the kind of wo. man who had been spoiled and pet ted all her life. Now that illness had come to her husband and the cook had left and help was so hard to get, she was engulfed in self pity and more than usually helpless as far as her husband was concerned.
 T haven't had decent bite to eat for a week." was. her husbands impatient answer" And headache say! Every bone in my body aches. If l had known I'd have to lie here and suffer like this I would have gone to the hospital when the doctor suggested it. Look at my hands! Thin as paper. I must have lost about twenty pounds this week. You haven't got anything to cry about 1! You're. not sick?"
 Aghast, his wife listened to the outburst, then threw herself into the big blue chair and wept aloud. Il don't care if you. are sick, think you are just horrid., I'm sure I'm doing everything I can. Look at that bed I just made it !! There's the doctors ring now, This room looks as if it had been struck erate!"
 The doctor marched into the room to find fearful woman and an irate man and a room that looked indeed, as if it had been struck by a cyclone.
 How are you feeling?" he began, whereupon the sick man related his woes with variations and ended up by declaring that he was quite sure he was worse instead of better and that the doctors medicine wasn't any good anyway.
 Sure sign you're getting better" said the doctor. quietly. As soon as patient begins to express his opinions and insult his friends, I stop worrying about him. It's tr1fle hard on the self-appointed nurse. however" And the doctor turned to his patients wife.
 T wonder if you would like some help for an hour or so, just to get things strengthened up and pisn some food for this man?" he asked. The man yelled "Food?' in glad sur prise and the wife. wiped more tears away and went rather weakly down. stairs. f.N
 Really, doctor" she said. fits aw- fully hard to do anything for my husband when he's sick. When he IS well he is dear but when he is i'll it's as if he were possessed. He rages and raves and scolds and ridi- cules and pulls the bedclothes out every time l tuck them in. It may sound disloyal but I'm wreck and it's all because he is 50 unreasonable"
 Sometimes convalescents are un- reasonable, admitted the doctor, "but it's because illness aggravates their worries and magnifies their suffering. Ones imagination is never keener than in illness. But don't worry. We can start to feed him up now. Get woman in to clean up his room. Shove the bed into the spare room Nothing like giving him new walls to gaze upon. Try to cheer him up. Keep cheerful yourself and stop worry ing Tranquility is half the battle in sickroOm."