Last Night I Couldn’t Get To Sleep At All
It’s 4:00 a.m. I went to bed two hours ago, and I got about an hour’s sleep. I’ve kind of gotten used to not sleeping several nights a month. Sometimes it’s difficulty breathing, I wake up with a feeling like I’m drowning. I start, gasping, and I am gripped with a panic. Other times it’s pain. I have stenosis of the spine. It started out as calcium deposits in a couple of of my cervical vertebrae; it’s progressed over the last few years and it now affects almost my entire spine, from C2 at the junction where the spine meets the brain stem, to T7, just a hair above my belt line. And there are nights when it isn’t a physical issue at all.
I just can’t unwind some nights. I go to bed with my mind racing, thinking about how my life will change, I think about all the things that could go wrong, I worry about money, I go disaster hunting. I’m sure you’ve all been there, you know the drill. But as I have gotten older, as the disease has progressed, I find it happens more and more often.
Way back when, it was less of a problem for me. If I couldn’t get to sleep, I’d smoke a joint or do a bong or two. Presto, I’d be back to bed for a peaceful night’s sleep. But that is frowned upon in transplant circles, so I try to avoid it. I gave up smoking a while back anyway, because the good weed made my heart rate go up and I didn’t like the way that felt. I don’t have that problem with edibles, but edibles have such a long lag time they require more advance planning.
I meditate. That relaxes my inner mind, so the panic stuff dissipates, but it doesn’t really help with getting to sleep. I suppose this is one of those items for which being on disability is a blessing, because I can usually find the time to take a nap. (I guess what they say is true — we reach a point where the older we get the more we regress. I now have the sleep pattern of a colicky baby.)
Oh well. This is the new normal for me. Maybe I can blame it on the supply chain crisis. Things I an no longer find because, well, Covid…
- Canned cat food;
- Oyster crackers;
- Kosher salami;
- Mushroom gravy; and
- A good night’s sleep.
I got my training for the insulin pump on Monday. It’s a miracle tool. My blood sugar wasn’t this well-controlled before I was diabetic. My A1c is coming down bit by bit now. It’s not an overnight fix, but that makes sense — it’s a measure of what my blood sugar is over the prior three months. Any moving average has a lag to it, by definition.
I’m still scraping together my nickels and dimes for the dental work I need to have done to get listed. Moving next month has pretty much drained the coffers, but I’m trying to stay positive. At least during daylight hours, anyway. 🙄
I’ve noticed I am not getting any response to my posts here, at least not on the blog, anyway. I’m really hoping to get a dialogue going here. Please, give me feedback, ask questions, challenge my grammar. C’mon in, the water’s fine.
P.S. I’m having trouble with the tags here. I can’t figure out if it’s a hardware problem a software problem, or a PEBCAK (problem exists between chair and keyboard.) I apologize to those who have been led here on false promises. I’ll figure it out eventually.
