Before the hospital, I had an epic battle with sleep. I’ve written reams about it, including a full-length novel including The Endless from Neil Gaiman’s incomparable Sandman. I’ve cursed Morpheus under my breath and overtly as well. In my twenties, I had nightmares all the time. I could remember four or five a night and there was a length of time when my friends were dying in my dreams in very creative ways. It became a running joke that you weren’t really a friend of mine if you hadn’t died in one of my dreams. Hell, I died in a dream of mine once as well.
Short history: Never had good sleep. Turned out I had undiagnosed hyperthyroidism, which didn’t help. That turned into hypothyroidism when I was fourteen (destroyed thyroid) and a lifetime of bad sleep.
When I was in college, I got four hours of sleep a night. I had a portable alarm clock that I kept on my desk. One day, I woke up and couldn’t find it. It wasn’t anywhere in my dorm room, so I gave up. I opened the mini-fridge to grab a Diet Pepsi and there it was–my portable clock, I mean.
After I started Taiji, my sleep got better by increments. I was able to sleep six hours a night, but let’s talk about what made up a night. I’ve been a night owl since I was a little kid. My mom would put me to bed around eight or so and I would promptly put a towel in the crack under the door. I would read until midnight or so before going to sleep.
After college, I became a total night owl. I mean, I was one in college, but I had to attend class so I couldn’t keep my preferred hours, which were 3 or 4 a.m. (going to bed) and getting up when I got up. In my forties, I had a steady rhythm of going to bed around six in the morning and getting up at noon. Recently, I wanted to have a more ‘normal’ bedtime so I started pushing back/forward my bedtime (going to bed earlier). I made it to midnight a few times before it started creeping up again. Forward? Back? Later in the night/earlier in the morning. Soon, it had crept back to four or five in the morning.
It was something that defined me–my lack of sleep. My difficulty in falling and staying asleep. I woke up at least three times a night, which with six hours of sleep, meant I wasn’t asleep for more than two hours at a time. Still. Six hours seemed like a luxury to me. It was two more hours than four! (Simple math FTW).
I have to say that not being able to sleep was a big part of my identity. It wasn’t t hat I liked it, per se, but it was something for which I was known. All my friends knew I didn’t sleep well and that I was up half the night when most people were asleep. That was part of the reason I liked it, honestly. I was awake when everyone else was asleep. It was as if the world belonged only to me. It was so quiet and peaceful with no one to bother me.
My routine became going to bed around four and getting up around ten. I’d take care of my cat (litter and feeding), brush my teeth/do some stretches. I did my half hour Taiji routine before messaging Ian on FB. That was how I started my day without fail. Until I failed. Or rather, until I was unable to do that. September 3rd, 2021. The day I’ll never forget–except, I can’t remember it because I was unconscious. I don’t remember any of it and have to rely on what other people tell me. I know what happened and I can tell you what happened, but I don’t remember anything of that experience. I don’t remember calling 911 or collapsing on in the front hallway.
Because I became unconscious, I don’t recall the ambulance ride with the two cardiac arrests or the stroke. I don’t recall the EMTs shocking my heart twice and administering an Epi pen, either. I don’t remember arriving at the hospital or the swarm of activity I’m sure happened around me once I got there.
That’s really odd to think about. All the people who were interacting with me when I didn’t realize it. I met with my heart doc a week after I got out of the hospital. I told him it was nice to meet him and he laughed. He said he had been my heart doc while I was in the hospital and had “met” me when I woke up. I immediately apologized for anything offensive I might have said. He laughed again and said that I had him cracking up, which was a relief. I’d rather amuse someone than offend him.
During my stay in the hospital, sleep was hard to come by because they had to take my vitals every six hours or so. Maybe more often? At any rate, they were guaranteed to wake me up when I was trying to sleep. In addition, I was hooked up to several different monitors and they all went off at different times. Sometimes, there was something wrong, but more often than not, it was just something got bumped.
I was starting to have PTSD from the beeping, honestly. A nurse told me that it wasn’t unusual for nurses to hear beeps in their sleep because they heard it so often during their shifts. I believed it as after a mere week, I started twitching any time I heard a loud beep. I am sensitive to sounds in the first place, which is why I keep everything muted at home (meaning, my cellphone).
When I got home from the hospital, my sleep schedule had permanently changed. I was in bed by 10 p.m. and up by 6 a.m. almost to the dot. I woke up once to go to the bathroom, but then fell back asleep immediately after returning to bed. Later, I realized that part of the reason it happened in the first week was because I was still stuffed with sedation drugs. Remember, they kept me sedated for a week. I was conscious the second week in the hospital, but I think they still gave me mild sedatives at times. Or not. I’m not sure, to be frank. At any rate, I still had them in my blood the first week I was home. I know I did because I felt absolutely no pain that first week. There was a large numb spot on my right thigh (still there, but slowly starting to thaw), but that was it. It was the second week I was home when I started to feel like a human being again. No pain, but my body actually had weight to it and there were the usual aches a 50-year-old has.
But, to my surprise, the sleep schedule has stuck. Today we did the fall back bullshit ,which means I had an extra hour of sleep. Luxury! I’m not saying you should try having a life-threatening medical experience if you want to improve your sleep, but I’m also not saying not to.