Tag: no sleep for me

Idle Thoughts

Published on by Grace15 Comments

4:20am – I’ve been awake since 1:30a and up and about since 2:30-ish. Took care of some paperwork, had breakfast and a couple of cups of coffee. I would kill for a cigarette but we’ve quit again; I don’t really see the point, not at our age – like I told my doctor recently, “I’m 76 and I wasn’t planning on living forever.”

My entire left side is crap, common wisdom would suggest it should be my right side since I am right-handed and therefore my right side is considered my dominant side. But Nooo – not me. Everything that goes wrong in/on my body does so on my left side.  My left shoulder hurts, my left arm and elbow and wrist joint hurt, my left hip and my lower back, on the left side hurts…

I’m back sharing a bed and bedroom with my husband and the expensive mattress we bought 2 years ago is one of the causes of my aches – the mattress suits him and his comfort – it is hard as a block of concrete. I prefer a hybrid medium firm with the top layer being gel foam – Ahh, such a nice comfy mattress. Husband prefers a block of concrete covered with something just a tiny bit soft.

You know what’s the interesting thing – about a year and a half ago I began sleeping in my ‘office’ which also functioned as a guest room and had a single bed in it.  Mostly because of my husband’s snoring and other assorted sleep noises – I finally decided the only chance I had of getting a decent night’s sleep was to sleep in another room – with the door closed. They can hear my husband snore and snort in Cleveland!  Plus the new mattress was killing me.

Here’s the interesting thing – the night my husband had his seizure I had decided to sleep in the the master bedroom with him. Why? He hadn’t been feeling well and something just nagged at me so THAT night I decided,just for that night, to stay close.  If I hadn’t made that decision I would have been sleeping in another room with the door closed, as I usually did,  and never heard him; never known he had a seizure; never even checked on him till hours later when I got up for the day.

If I hadn’t changed my sleeping habits that one night I wonder what my situation would be today? That will always nag at me just a teeny tiny bit – I could be free right now – maybe.

Despite my crazy sleep schedule I am finally sleeping a bit more – I think I have no choice I’ve been falling asleep literally standing up – so I’m feeling a bit more rested. I’m still  brain dead by mid-afternoon but everyday I seem to have a bit more energy. Yes, I still walk into rooms intent on doing something and then can’t remember what – And no that is NOT a usual thing for me – a lot of me is falling apart but my brain is still in quite good shape. Physical fatigue is getting under control but mental fatigue is still with me. I’m not sure how one alleviates mental fatigue.

It’s now 5:15am and I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open – might be time for a little nap as soon as I get my husband set up in his recliner. He got up about 4:30am – he’s had his meds and his breakfast. He can safely navigate around the apartment now, which has taken a lot of the pressure off me but this morning he’s seems a bit more wobbly, I might just wait until he gets all his stuff moved across the room. Being a man, he thinks he can safely maneuver a trip across the room using a cane, carrying a cup of coffee and a book with only one good hand. Experience has shown that is not going to happen.

I should have gone back to bad when I had the chance, my eyes may be at half staff but my brain is in overdrive…I know that if I go back to bed now I will just flip and flop and by the afternoon I will be stumbling over my own feet and will probably wind up taking a nap, whether I want to or not,  which means when it’s time to go to bed for the night I won’t be sleepy and this crazy sleep cycle will just keep rolling on…

It’s been a day…

Published on by Grace5 Comments

I’ve got to get a real bed. I sleep on a twin bed in my ‘office’ – and visually gorgeous tho the bed is a grown-up person should not be sleeping in a twin bed. The last time I got any decent sleep was when I was in the hospital 2 years ago. There is a king sized bed with a very expensive fancy-schmancy new mattress on it but it also contains my husband when sleep time comes around.

We’ve been married for a little over 32 years and the only time I got any sleep in all those years was when he was working the midnight shift or traveling, so not at home at all.

Midnight shifts ended when he got promoted, traveling for work ended when he got promoted again, then the only respite I got was when he went on vacation by himself to visit his family.

My husband snores so loud that at least once our next door neighbor mentioned it! Then he  devolved into snorting, huffing and puffing, mouth breathing and some weird generalized noises. He swears he does none of this, I recorded him, he says “Oh well”.

You wanna know the best part? A lot of the mouth breathing, huffing and puffing and snorting only, ONLY, happens when I am also in bed. I get out of bed, it stops. I can almost play him like an out-of-tune tuba. I would sit on the edge of the bed, stand up, the noise would stop. I’d drop down to sit on the edge of the bed, it would start again. Up and down, stand and sit. Noise, no noise.

He says I’m making it up. I say Passive-Aggressive, a little?

I bought the twin bed for my ‘office’ as an emergency bed because, I’ll tell the truth here, there were actually nights when he was quiet as a mouse. Last January the emergency bed became my permanent bed. I’m not great at sleeping as it is, but in a twin bed? Like – No.

Now I’ve got to sell this damn thing and squish a standard double bed in here – oy!

Ahead of that this morning I moved some things around my office/bedroom. First I re-organized our storage room so I could get things out and put things in. Happily our storage room is across from our apartment.

At some point I had switched out my heavy, solid wood desk for a larger (and lighter) folding table. That switch had to reverse. Also the floor lamp which I rarely used had to go into storage. I’ve got my own handy-dandy folding luggage cart that makes hauling these heavy items easy-peasy, all my husband had to do was hold the door. I had to re-arrange all my desk detritus.

I put the desk back together myself – just legs had to go on – I was clever I put the desktop on the bed which made it easy to put the bolts back in and easy to flip it and get it on the floor without crapping it up. One day I’m going to figure out why I have to buy solid wood furniture – damn thing was heavy. Hell, the letter-box on my desk is solid wood and weighs a ton. You can bet my back is killing me now and by tomorrow I’ll be a total cripple.

I posted the bed on the building bulletin board and hope I get some bites. I’m actually trying to sell it – usually I just give stuff away and boy oh boy when an item is marked “Free” the offers come flooding in.  The bed I’m selling is a Craftsman style platform bed with 2 storage draws that, if you could buy it, would cost about $800. You can’t actually buy a new one of this particular brand and model because everyone is out of stock – supply chain issues. I’m thinking $250 is a bargain. We’ll see.

So how did you spend your Saturday?

Long night’s journey into day

Published on by Grace4 Comments

5:30am-ish as I type. Been awake since 3:30am, or perhaps we can call it 1:30am, when I first woke, then 2:30am then 3:30am then tossed and turned until 4:30am-ish then gave up and got out of bed for good.

It’s Friday and therefore laundry day, it would have been nice to get that done at 4:30am but that’s against the rules – laundry room hours are 7am-11pm. I break the rules by doing laundry at 6am – bad me. But the wars of the community laundry room can be brutal. And I like to win – at something.

Tonight it was excruciating leg cramps that kept waking me up. Other nights like this it is a busy brain – does my brain never get tired?

Crazy weather, eh? 25 degree difference between highs and lows makes for strange clothing choices – dress for the high or for the low? Okay, so the low temps are overnight – still we don’t reach the high until late afternoon.

On one of my late night walk-abouts, to work off the leg cramps, I closed the windows because the smell of fresh asphalt was stronger than when they laid it more than 12 hours earlier. How could that be?

I ordered my blue hair color but it won’t get here until Monday, so tune in next Tuesday for me with, possibly, dark blue hair – or as the package says – dark intense indigo. I doubt it will have much effect on the still black portions of my hair but I’m hoping the grey picks up some color. It will be a hoot, don’tcha think? What a thing to look forward to, anything to break up the boredom and ennui.

Getting close to 6 now – will write more later…