Before I went into the hospital, my sleep sucked. A brief summary: I was hyperthyoid when I was a kid and severely depressed. I rarely fell asleep before midnight and my sleep was sparse. I got maybe four hours a night in college, which was not nearly enough. Every time I went home for vacation or summer, I slept fifteen hours the first night. In college, I had a light purple portable alarm clock that I kept on my desk (which was right by my bed). One day, I woke up and couldn’t find my alarm clock. I looked all over the dorm room and couldn’t find it. I finally gave up and opened my mini-fridge so I could grab a Diet Pepsi. Hey, it’s caffeine. No reason I couldn’t drink it instead of coffee in the morning. Anyway, when I opened the door to the mini-fridge and there was my portable alarm clock.
Taiji helped me with my sleep–marginally. In increments. After several year, I was able to sleep six hours a night, waking up twice. I went from going to bed at between six and eight in the morning, waking up six hours later. I worked on pushing my sleep time back. Or is it forward? Earlier is what I mean. I managed to get it to one in the morning before I started slipping back. I am an inveterate night owl and I couldn’t help staying up a little bit longer each night. By the time I went into the hospital, I was going to bed around three or four in the morning.
All that came to a crashing halt when I went into the hospital. First of all, I was kept sedated and unconscious for a week. When I woke up, I had to get my vitals taken every four hours so my sleep was constantly interrupted. I slept a lot, though, despite that because of the sedation meds still in my blood and the trauma my body went through. I was sleeping most of the time for the first few days I was awake.
When I came home, I was still flying high under the influence of sedatives and narcotics. I wasn’t feeling any pain, but I was super-tired all the time. I was sleeping a healthy eight hours a night, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. The second week I was home, the meds completely left my body. Suddenly, I had aches I didn’t know were there before. I also had a sore on the back of my head from lying in one position for a week-and-a-half. The nurse who visits me once a week at home to check in on me was surprised that they didn’t turn me in the hospital. I couldn’t speak to that, of course, because I was unconscious, but the result is a sore on the back of my head.
understandably, I didn’t care much about that for the first few weeks I was home. I had more important things on my mind and figured it would sort itself out soon. Well, it didn’t, so I mentioned it to the nurse’s aide who washes my hair every Friday. I mentioned it to her last Friday. She suggested I keep my hair down to let it breathe.
Side note: My hair is almost down to my knees. I normally wear it up on the top of my head in a bun. Even though it’s really long, it’s thin so it’s not too heavy. Keeping my hair down during the day has the added bonus of keeping my hair untangled. Before the hospital, I would wear it up in a topknot all the time, only taking it down every three weeks or so to wash it. I would have to spend twenty minutes brushing it hard because it’d be a tangled mess at that point. Wearing it down keeps it tangle-free, which is a nice bonus. I wear it in the iconic Chun Li two buns on the top/each side of the head while I sleep and do my taiji practice (without her trademark fabric cups) and in two high ponies, one on each side, when I go out for my morning constitutional. Otherwise, I wear it down, parted in the middle, each side cascading down my chest. I prefer to wear it up, but this really does keep it free of tangles. I will say that wearing it in two low ponies works as well. Basically, anything that splits it in two keeps it tangle-free. Although, I have not tried wearing it in low ponies to sleep. That might not work as well.
I’m getting an average of eight hours a sleep now that I’m back home. All the drugs have worn out so it’s not that any longer. I will say that I was stressed for the first several days of wearing a heart monitor before I figured out how to keep the Do Not Disturb notice on all the time so I never had to be bothered by the beeps. Now that I have that sorted, the heart monitor doesn’t bother me any longer.
It’s hard to believe that I’m now officially a morning person. I get up by six, six-thirty at the latest, and I’m in bed by eleven at the very latest. Normally, it’s between ten and ten-thirty. I will say that I like the hour or so I have to myself in the morning before my parents get up. That was my favorite part of staying up until two or three in the morning–the quiet darkness. The early morning isn’t the same, but it’s still pretty great. The sun not even risen yet and a bite in the air. Winter is my favorite season, but autumn is a close second. And, I have to say for walking purposes, autumn surpasses winter.
That’s another surprising thing since leaving the hospital–I’m actually enjoying the morning constitutional I’m now taking every day. I am allergic to everything under the sun so I try to stay away from nature as much as possible. What I’ve discovered, however, is that if I wear my mask, I can keep most of the allergens at bay so I can enjoy the crisp, brisk, autumn air.
Side note II: It’s amazing how much I’ve changed my perspective on the pandemic since I woke up in the hospital. I was someone who was almost paranoid about going outside because of the pandemic. I ordered all my groceries online and I only went out to get my meds once a month. I basically put myself in lockdown, only loosening up a bit after I was fully avxxed. When I went into the hospital, they apparently did a COVID test on me, probably while I was unconscious. Negative. Then, I had a breathing tube in my nose so I couldn’t be masked up. Everyone around me wore masks, of course, but not me–unless I was moving rooms. Now that I’m out, I wear my mask when I’m outside the home, but I’ve become less hypervigilant about the coronavirus. Look, we’re not eradicating it so the best we can hope for is that it becomes like the flu. Ain’t nobody happy about that, but it’s the damn truth.
I love the temps being around forty/fifty as I briskly -stroll through the neighborhood. I go a little farther each day as a way of working on my stamina. I go all out as I walk away from the house and amore sedate pace on the way back. I love the nip in the air and the wind ruffling through my hair as I walk. Life is, indeed, good at that moment.