He’s used to being on the other side of the stethoscope, this one.

The one treating patients, not the one being treated.

But as Super-Spouse has received official retirement orders from the U.S. Army, this sweet soldier of mine has finally decided that, after 20 years of his own medical “self-treatment” (AKA, neglect), he might actually want to take care of the body that has been so busy selflessly serving soldiers that it hasn’t made an appointment to take care of itself in two decades.

(The bones that broke on the deployment of 2012 when he was the only physician in a remote area are apparently not going to treat themselves. Who knew?)

So as he’s begun attending the slew of medical appointments required for military personnel as they begin out-processing from the Army, he’s also begun finally rescheduling the surgeries and procedures that were originally slated for THREE YEARS AGO (Lord have mercy) and again the week our state, because of Covid-19, shut down.

For nearly 16 years of marriage, Super-Spouse has missed out on all the fun.

He missed the hurricane of 2016 that leaked through log walls and downed power for multiple days.

He missed the hurricane two years later that flooded our land and our county and closed schools for can't-sit-still superheroes hopelessly bound to their homes.

He missed the Great Bat Infestation and Simultaneous Basement Flood of 2018 (and all the repairing and re-flooring that followed).

And he missed the 15-minutes-after-arriving-at-the-hospital delivery process of Superhero 2. (Thankfully, thanks to hefty speeding on back roads, Kiersten Slevin, saver of baby deliveries, did NOT 🙌.)

But now that he has changed out of the very last command of his military life (in his pajamas from home in what was an introvert’s dream of a non-ceremony), my favorite superhero who loves to live on other continents when disaster strikes is, for what feels like the first time ever, HOME!

And in a world where we know one deployment or TDY could have easily kept us apart for months, I have never felt so humbled, grateful or blessed.

Quality time together is a luxury in this military life.

Quality time with a man like this one is just plain opulence.

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