When I told my husband that I’d been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, his first reaction was “Oh, so in other words they STILL don’t know what’s wrong with you.” So I sat him down in front of the computer and pointed him to the Mayo Clinic page on it so he could find out a bit more.

I probably should have known better than to actually expect him to read anything, because not 15 minutes later he walked up and said, “OK, so the doctor thinks you’ve got this but she can’t fix it. That sucks. What’s for dinner?”

See, in my husband’s way of thinking if something can’t be fixed — which, when it comes to medical conditions, means actually cured — then it’s not really a problem. Because, as we all know, problems can be solved and therefore something unsolvable isn’t really a problem.

Bless his heart.

Needless to say, I did NOT react well to this attitude. I’ve been fuming, as a matter of fact. Not that he’d know it. I haven’t given him the silent treatment and I’ve still been keeping up with the cooking, dishes and laundry. I’ve just been P.O.’d while doing it but don’t have the energy to deal with a big argument right now.

Today he called from work to tell me that he’s been thinking about how awful I’ve been feeling lately, so he’s bringing me home a “surprise”. Naturally, I started trying to imagine what on earth it could be. Ice cream? No, he knows I’m not a huge fan. Vodka? Wait, I’ve got plenty of that in the house. Maybe he’s going for an all-out splurge and finally picked up the Wii I’ve been wanting for a year now.

Silly me.

He walked in the door with a mostly empty bag from Wal-Mart in his hand, at which point I knew I probably should’ve kept my hopes small. And what did he bring me? Aspirin. A big bottle of aspirin.

“Maybe this will help with the pain,” he suggested with a huge, cat-that-ate-the-canary grin on his face like I should fall down on my knees then and there and praise him for having gone to such magnificent lengths. (It was very much like the time he said he’d found something to help with my year-round allergy problems and came home bearing a lint b gone roller.)

But, really, I don’t want to discourage his first baby steps at being supportive over all of this, so I hugged him and thanked him for thinking of me.

Then I decided tonight I’m doing exactly what the directions on the back of the aspirin bottle advise: I’m taking two then keeping away from small children.

Tonight, my husband’s on Parenting Duty. Me? I’m going to slip into a hot bath with a cold martini and staying in there as long as our water heater can hold out.