Insomnia Ain’t For The Tired

Thanks to a nice new medication I am on, I haven’t had more then three hours of sleep for the last three weeks. It wasn’t too bad at first and the delusions didn’t come until midway through week two, but the last few days have really been tough. Since I’ve had all of this extra time on my hands, it got me to thinking about the best way to handle insomnia.

Initially, you’re really only faced with two alternatives: lie in bed and suffer through it or go downstairs and watch TV. I’ve tried both but figured after purchasing the Ronco Set it and Forget it rotisserie, a beautiful set of steak knives, Jessica Simpson’s Proactive acne fighting solution (I’m still not sure why I bought that one, maybe I’ll use it as a white elephant gift in the office next Christmas) and a tape set that will make me a millionaire in real estate with no money down, that staying awake watching TV all night was costing me too much money. Not to mention that I’m on some really weird mailing lists all of a sudden.

Trying to lie in bed isn’t a good alternative because around 4:00AM, I start accusing the alarm clock of trying to pick a fight with me and that usually wakes the wife up. I still swear that clock was giving me dirty looks last night though.

Then I did some research on insomnia and famous insomniacs at about 3:30AM one morning (ironic but appropriate) and learned some things that made my late night TV watching seem pathetic in comparison. Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while he couldn’t sleep and Thomas Jefferson drafted most of the Declaration of Independence while suffering from insomnia. Other notable insomniacs were Winston Churchill, Isaac Newton, Charles Dickens and that guy that played Ralph on ‘Happy Days.’

Actually, I made all of that up. I don’t have enough energy to research insomnia. Although maybe insomnia research is just the thing that would put me to sleep for at least eight hours. At any rate, last night I decided to put all of the extra hours to good use. The only problem is that judging by the neighbors screaming at me over the fence, I’m not going to be able to mow the lawn when I can’t sleep anymore. Ditto on the vacuuming around the house. When I realized we were low on ice cubes, I thought that emptying the ice trays would be nice for everyone when they got up in the morning, but I got a very similar reaction to the one I received from the neighbors. We’ll call it a ‘cold’ reception at best.

Finally, I decided I could blog all night as surely the sounds of me striking the keys on the keyboard wouldn’t wake up Lucy and Ethel. Did you notice that I didn’t leave comments on any of your blogs late last night or early this morning? Yep, too loud, so I began cruising the internet looking for the inspiration for today’s post. I thought I had found it when I came across the story of a 102-year-old California woman who became the oldest person to sink a hole in one on a regulation golf course. She died of a heart attack moments later.

Yes, I made the heart attack part up, but that’s all I could think of and it’s only two sentences. I tired to tough this insomnia thing out regardless of the fact that it’s hurting my job performance, not allowing me to help enough at home and that I think I struck a light pole while driving home from work the other night (at least that’s what the unexplained dent on the front of my truck looks like, although I suppose it could be a tree and all of this is just a bad dream like in ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’). However, when the insomnia starts affecting the length of my writing (the quality is already suspect), I decided it was time to call the doctor.

Since I was too tired to actually go in for an appointment, the doctor tried to determine a diagnosis over the phone (I still don’t understand why I had to stick my tongue out). I was asked a lot of questions about stress, my diet, what I watch on TV before going to bed and anything else that might make it hard for me to sleep at night, like the fact that I try to sneak in frequent naps (and by frequent, I mean every 45 minutes) at work. I could tell the doctor was taking copious notes and she said she would consult with one of her colleagues and get back to me just as soon as she could. I told her to take her time because I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it, although I don’t think she appreciated my sarcasm. My hint is that she actually hung up on me. Boy I can’t wait until I get the survey from my medical provided about her.

A few hours later the phone rang as I found myself standing in front of the mirror trying to force my eyelids shut with my fingers while going back and forth between singing the Beatles’ ‘I’m So Tired’ and mumbling to my eyes, ‘close you #$@##$%, close!’ The doctor said she did some research and it turns out that I need to stop drinking soda, coffee and tea (I call it my goodnight cocktail) right before I go to bed. Who knew? There’s no sleep deprivation warnings on those things. Oh well. Never mind…