Sleeping Beauty

I have always had a difficult time sleeping.  I can remember as a child having a terrible time falling asleep and always being the last one at slumber parties or at Girl Scout Camp to fall asleep.  I guess I’ve been a functioning insomniac my entire life.  I’ll go weeks and weeks on end having trouble falling asleep, then I’ll switch to the fall asleep quickly, but wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep for a couple of hours or not at all.  It pretty much sucks no matter how it happens, though I prefer having the trouble falling asleep, because waking up in the middle of the night thing is crap.  It’s boring, the love of my life ends up waking up, the dog will wake up, and since we no longer have cable, there’s no late night Hitchcock to watch.

I’ve read all the books, all the studies, done all the right things with my bedroom, and I still have the trouble.  When it gets really bad I will pop a couple of pinkies (Benadryl) before bed and that will line me out after a week or so.  A few years ago I asked my internist for some Ambien.  I had taken it in the past after, yes, another ankle surgery, and it helped tremendously.  She refused me and told me to get some Melatonin.  I came thisclose to laughing right in her face, but I saved and bitched all the way home and all the way to the store and right up until bedtime when I begrudgingly took the stupid Melatonin.  That shit worked!  No kidding!  I apologized to the lady a few months later for laughing at her behind her back.

Unfortunately Melatonin isn't the cure all it once was.  I think it loses steam after awhile, and I “dry out” for a few weeks and get back on it.  It’s a nice in-between the pinkies for me.

Since I have had this ankle surgery, the insomnia is raging.  I called my family physician and he was nice enough to call me in two weeks of Ambien.  I did pretty well the first week on it.  Got my rhythm down, but that was when I started having all sorts of crazy mood swings – up, down, up, down, flat, up, down, down lower – you get the picture, right?  And while the dreams were awesome, the nightmares were not.  Now that the Ambien is but a distant memory I am back to the same old sleeping habits.  I fall asleep pretty quickly these days thanks to the Melatonin, but I cannot stay asleep.  Every single time I turn over or make any type of move, I am awake.  I know it’s because of The Pink Monstrosity.  That thing is becoming more and more like a dead weight every moment I have to endure wearing it.

I cannot stop yawning during the day.  I can’t keep my eyes open.  I’m at work, and you know unless you are a certain person in my organization, sleeping is frowned upon.  The Pink Monstrosity comes off this Thursday, and I cannot wait.  I will be cut out, x-rayed, and if all goes well, the doctor will put me in the big, ugly, black boot.  I so want that thing!  I don’t know what I will do if I have to go into another cast.  I may ask for some Prozac to go with it along with a month supply of Ambien.