Mommin' It Up!

October 1, 2009October 1, 2009

Sleepdate

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve had a rough month. I am still getting over the virus from hell. Yesterday I was starting to feel human again but then this morning I woke up with my nose full of snot and a giant headache so who knows? Maybe I’ll just have it for the rest of my life! Anyhoo, I realized that in the midst of my giant pity party, I had forgotten to update you, the Inquiring Minds, on my various and sundry SLEEP problems. And I know you were just DYING to know what’s going on.

On September 21, I had a sleep study done. This is where you go to a doctor’s office with bedrooms, change into your PJs, and let some strange dude hook you up to 27 wires. Many of these wires come out of your head, and he uses a yucky goo to attach them to your very hairy scalp. This takes about 45 awkward minutes, during which your stomach growls the whole time, and you feel so self-conscious about it that you feel the need to comment about it every time it happens.

After you are wired, said strange dude takes you into your bedroom and tucks you in. Thank God they let you take your Ambien CR first cause there is no way anyone could possibly sleep naturally with 27 wires attached to them.

You sleep some, and strange dude comes to re-connect wires twice during the night. You have a really bad dream at one point, and wake up with your heart racing. You bet the monitors attached to the wires are loving this!

At 5:30, Strange Dude comes back in the room to wake you for the day. “Good morning Jenny,” he says kindly. You find this rather odd, since, as you had no wild nights in college, this is the first time since you were a child that a man besides your husband has tucked you in and woken you up in the morning.

Strange Dude takes all the wires off. Your hair stands up matted with goo in many places. It reminds you of the movie There’s Something About Mary.

You drive home to find your husband is sick and you have to take your son to school. You jump in the shower as fast as you can to wash the nasty goo out of your hair. This would not go over well at the Christian school!

You go back to the doctor October 5th to find out if they actually LEARNED anything about your various and sundry sleep problems from the study. You can’t WAIT, because you’d really love to know what the heck is wrong with you!

As I have said many times before, stay tuned…

(and P.S. we are giving away SIX months of Kroger Deluxe ice cream on Reviewin’ It Up! Go enter here!)

September 8, 2009

It’s Like Raaaiiiin On Your Wedding Day

Today I am taking a big leap – I am going to see a specialist about the sleeping problems I’ve been dealing with for oh, saaaay, about five-and-a-half-years now. Problems that have just been getting worse. I am excited and nervous and I really hope this guy can just “fix” me or give me something that will, although surely it won’t be that simple. (But maybe it will! Maybe!)

But seeing as it’s now 4:59 a.m. and I’ve been awake since about 2:30 a.m. on the eve of this appointment (maybe because Alanis Morrisette’s little ditty about irony has been running through my head much of that time), which isn’t until 9:45, I’m pretty much ready to try anything.

Anything to fall asleep and sleep all night without waking a million times, to wake up feeling good, to not be ready for bed before my husband even gets home from work, to not be cranky and desperate-feeling at dinnertime, to have a longer fuse, to be able to sleep on vacation or anytime I’m out of town, anything anything anything.

To sleep, perchance to dream?

I dream of sleeping.

Who would’ve thought? It figures.

April 29, 2009

Thoughts of an Anxious Insomniac

Last night I went to bed at 10:30 and I was so exhausted that I actually felt nauseous – maybe this is from my latest adventures in hormone therapy, maybe I was just super-tired. In any case, I took a Tylenol PM to go with my pre-bed Prozac ’cause I hadn’t slept well the past two nights and I really wanted to SLEEEEEEP.

But of course I had trouble falling asleep, despite my exhaustion. I’ve been having a little trouble with anxiety the past couple of days. It hasn’t been crippling, but it has been uncomfortable, and it’s come with a tightness in my chest – a physical symptom that is really getting on mah NERVES.

So I was feeling that, and then I started to get hungry. You see, another thing with this hormone-dealio is lack of appetite. Now it’d be nice if this symptom helped me to lose a few pounds, but unfortunately my appetite for Mountain Dew is still fully intact. Except yesterday, I was REALLY off, because I didn’t even have any Dew! What I ingested yesterday was a glass of chocolate milk, two cups of chocolate pudding (one for lunch, one for dinner, mmmm) and a cafe mocha. (Are you sensing a chocolate theme?)

In any case, as the clock crawled toward 11:00 last night, my appetite returned. But I was too tired to get up and do anything about it. I just wanted to sleep. But I was so ravenous I about started to nibble on my own hand.

I managed, after a few minutes, to ignore the hunger but I still couldn’t sleep. My exhausted mind began to hatch a plan to reach sleep. Here’s what I would do: I’d get up, rummage through my closet to find my sadly-neglected tennis shoes, put them on, and go for a run. Now perhaps you may remember from reading this blog that I abhor exercise. And when Emily talks about running it about gives me hives. I can’t run a BLOCK, people, but after 11 last night this seemed like a good idea. I’d lace up my sneaks, and I’d run in my pajamas. I knew I wouldn’t make it far but maybe five or six blocks would be enough to tire me out. I pictured myself running as fast as I could over the bumpy, uneven city sidewalk, maybe down to the convenience store I call Apu’s and then back again, my chest bursting as I returned home – surely then I could gulp down some water, take off my sneakers, and fall into bed and sleep would immediately overtake me.

What a great plan!

Riiiiight. Like I was gonna do that. But so desperate for sleep was I, that it did seem semi-rational.

Imagining my run must’ve tired me out some, because it wasn’t too much longer after that mental exercise that I DID fall asleep. The Tylenol PM seemed to work it’s magic and I actually slept pretty well. Joshua actually stayed in his own bed all night for once and didn’t wake me up until ten til eight this morning.

After I shook the sleep off this morning I giggled remembering my nocturnal thoughts. I have got to be the most neurotic person on the planet!

Me? Go for a RUN? No matter what time of day or night, THAT is crazy-talk. Or crazy-thinking as the case may be. But seriously. Seemed like a good idea at the time.