Sick Buddies

This past week I had coffee with my ex boyfriend (who from now on will affectionately be called J) just to catch up on life and see how things are going. It had been about a month and a half since we had last gotten together and although we are doing pretty well at the whole being friends thing, it is still a bit of a struggle at times. The last time we saw one another I told him that he looked obscenely thin and that he should go see a doctor. J has crohns disease that was diagnosed during his teen years, but over the last few years he has been in a bit of a medical rebellion just like me. It turns out I was right because a month after we last saw each other he found himself in the ER with a fever and kidneys that weren't functioning properly and to be honest he is lucky to be alive. Not only does he have crohns but he also has the common male problem of refusing to go to the doctor, especially when it's recommended by the women in his life haha. But all jokes aside, it is weird how life has a tendency to work out. One of the reasons he and I bonded so well was that we both knew what it was like to miss out on a huge chunk of your formative years because of an illness. He understood something in me that is just so hard to explain to someone who has never been sick, and we rekindled that part of our friendship this past week. We know that we should never date because there are parts of us that are just too vastly different, but we have instead decided to be "sick buddies".
We are both facing some rather intense treatments in the near future (I've given up on my medical protest which I promise to post about later) and have decided that it is better to be 2 sickies watching a movie together than alone and sad. The agreement goes as such, if one of us is having a really horrible day and feels too crappy to go out but is rather lonesome and the other one is up for the journey, than the person having a decent day will be lazy and ill with the one who feels like hell. It sounds like the most basic idea, but it's sometimes hard as the person who is sick to ask vital and healthy friends to slow down just for you. It's almost embarrassing, so this way we each know we have a backup plan. I guess being sick is a lot like learning to swim... its scary but it works better with the buddy system :)