It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do for a body

Insomnia sucks! For the past few years I've been struggling with it but over the last several months, it's become unbearable. Trying to function on 3 or 4 hours of sleep has been challenging. Not only have I been physically exhausted, I've lost mental clarity. 

I have tried everything in the book. No amount of herbal remedies or bottles of melatonin have worked. Even adding in Sleepy Time tea hasn't helped. Finally, at my wit's end, I made a call to my doctor. I was desperate. Thankfully, he listened and was willing to help. 

When the pharmacy called and said my prescription was ready, I was hesitant. I didn't want to have to take a medication to fall asleep, but when you can't make your brain stop, what do you do? 

Last night, I slept for 8 and 1/2 hours! That's the first time I've done that since I was a teenager! I woke up feeling rested and ready to face the day. I was so thankful. 

It's amazing how sleep affects one's ability to function. I think that's one reason a wartime strategy against prisoners of war is to deprive them of sleep. When they can break one's physical stamina, they can break the mind, too. 

I've read that the older one gets the less sleep a person needs, and while that may be the case, 3 or 4 hours is definitely not enough. 

I'm glad there's something to help, even though those types of medication can cause one to become dependent or even addicted. If you're suffering from insomnia or have suffered with it in the past, you know the importance of using medication like this responsibly and only for the period necessary to get your body back on track. If you've never had an issue with sleep, God bless you! You're one of the lucky few. It's so important to take care of yourself and that includes making sure you get a good night's sleep.

Stop Talking!

Ever have a conversation with your brain? I have. I do almost every single day. In fact, that's part of the problem. I can never get my brain to stop working. Day in and day out, my brain is always working. Random thoughts bombard my mind continually. It's getting to the point that it's interrupting my sleep. Either I don't sleep until the wee hours of the morning, or I find myself waking after only a few hours of sleep. Both scenarios suck.

This morning, as it was pitch black outside I found myself awake. Not knowing what time it was, I crept out of bed to keep from waking my husband. Feeling my way into the dining room, I sat at the table and fumbled around to find my Bible. When I can't sleep, I read and my Bible is my book of choice.

Using my flashlight, I opened my Bible. It fell open to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. As I read the chapter, I stopped on verse 21: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." That verse is powerful and has always been a good reminder of how much God loves us and wanted us to be reconciled to Him.

I sat and read my Bible for a couple of hours, taking notes and cross referencing scriptures. After I prayed, I heard stirring. My husband was waking up. Sleepy eyed, he came into the living room and stared at me. "What are you doing up at this hour?," he said. I told him I had no idea. He urged me to go back to sleep but I explained I was wide awake.

After he went to bed, I went into my office to make notes. So many thoughts were coming in, I figured if I wrote them down and got them out of my head, I might be able to rest, but that didn't work. I'd download a few thoughts thinking I was clearing my head when twice as many as I'd written pushed their way in. Finally, I gave up and started my day with household chores. Doing laundry at that ungodly hour was insane and I'm beginning to wonder if I might have some sort of health issue. Do others struggle with getting their brains to rest?

This can't continue or I'll be a walking zombie. I must find a solution. Please keep me in your prayers as I work to figure this out.

iNsOmNiA SUCKS!!!

Yeah. I did that funky title on purpose with the lower and upper case letters. I wanted to draw your attention to the word INSOMNIA, did it work? And you may be wondering how I can be coherent enough to even blog today but that's the thing...my brain never stops working. That's partially the reason why I can't sleep. I can't figure out how to turn off the thoughts.

There's nothing like tossing and turning all night long trying to get comfortable enough to drift off to dreamland. It's challenging to even climb into bed when you know you won't find relief. This morning, my husband could tell it'd been a rough night for me. When he left for work, he could see me huddled at the foot of the bed with all my pillows trying to find a position conducive to sleep. I'm sure he wondered what in the world I was doing at the foot of the bed but I was trying to find something that worked.

Part of the insomnia is the result of coming off of Ambien cold turkey. My oncologist had prescribed it for me a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned I couldn't sleep. After researching the drug, I worried about being on a medication I could get addicted to or dependent on and decided I didn't want to risk it. I decided night before last not to take it any longer...OH MY GOSH! I don't know if it was a huge mistake or what but I'm back to sleepless nights. Not to worry though, I'm going to contact him today and ask his opinion. He'll probably tell me I'm a dummy for coming off it cold turkey and I'll take that slap on the wrist because I earned it.

So what do you do? Do you take the medication and get some really good, hypnotic sleep and risk becoming dependent on Ambien or do you keep on hoping and praying for sleep to come? I don't know. I don't know what the best thing to do is but I know I have to get some sleep or I'm not going to be able to function. This is not pretty. Something has to give. And you may be thinking why don't you just take the medication and go to sleep? It's not that easy. We just added Cymbalta to my ever growing list of meds 2 weeks ago and I'm getting tired of checking for drug interactions every time a new med is added to the list, but...as a responsible adult, I have to be careful about my body and my health. I need to know if I'm facing some life or death side effects because I can't trust the medical team to shoulder that responsibility for me.

Please pray I make the right decision and pray I can get some sleep. If you get a peaceful, restful night's sleep every night, I envy you. Please don't take it for granted because some of us don't remember what that feels like.

Change, she's a comin'

Inauguration day is tomorrow and the whole world will be watching as Donald J. Trump takes the oath of office. It's definitely going to be an historic day. I'm not big into politics so I haven't been monitoring the news on a daily basis, but I've been surprised at the number of elected officials who've decided to boycott the ceremony. And that's all I'm going to say about that. There is an electricity in the air and you can definitely feel a change coming.

I learned a hard lesson today. You'd think I would know better than to post my personal opinion about anything on Facebook, but suffice it say live and learn. I made a comment about the election and referred to a scripture found in the Bible admonishing us to honor our king....boy, did I get a lot of responses to that post. Some of them were positive and some were negative. But you know what they say about opinions...everyone has one. It always amazes me how family members react and reminds me I need to choose my audience a little more carefully in the future for fear of upsetting some of the "more delicate" folks.

Facebook used to be one of my main avenues for connecting socially with others. Since moving to the boondocks, I don't see or hear from family much. If I wanted to know what was going on in their lives, I'd jump on the computer and check out their feeds...that is, until I started being added to their restricted lists. I certainly wasn't snooping, I just wanted to know how they were doing and what milestones they were celebrating in their lives, but sometimes there's too much drama to suit me so I decided to limit my exposure. I don't need added stress in my life.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I turn to my health issues. I've been doing fairly well other than suffering from insomnia, depression, fatigue and pain. Those are the big ones that can take you down in a hurry if you let them. Since things had gotten worse instead of better for the past few months, I called the oncologist. I knew I needed help. He suggested I take Ambien for the next month to get my sleep cycle back on track. He's offered it to me in the past and I'd tried it a night or two but didn't want to get dependent on anything. It's been a long time since I've had a good night of sleep so I'm willing to try it. He also suggested I try something for the constant pain. I'm hesitant but I trust him. Something has to give. I just want to feel better.

This afternoon, as I was looking outside, I noticed the Bermuda grass greening up. Our weather has been so unpredictable lately, I guess the grass thinks Spring is just around the corner. We haven't really had a hard winter but that doesn't mean anything until the end of April. Our area is notorious for ice storms in March and April. I'm looking forward to Spring. Warm weather, lots of sunshine, and beautiful flowers are just what I need to cancel out the S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder) that comes with these gray days. I love change and I'm ready for it. Any minute I expect to see daffodils pushing up through the dirt. Change is coming not only in nature but in our lives as Americans, you can bank on it.


Click here to listen to "A Change is Coming" by Leroy Bell