Slippery Sleep

I had a terrible time sleeping last night.  It felt just like it did in my early years with CFS, but that's no longer normal for me.  Ever since finding effective treatment for the sleep dysfunction in CFS many years ago (it was the first thing my doctor treated once I was diagnosed), I usually sleep soundly for 8-9 hours now, maybe waking once to use the bathroom.  But last night, every possible type of sleep problem plagued me.

I felt sleepy when I turned out the light but couldn't fall asleep for over an hour.  I got up 4-5 times to use the bathroom (as my doctor told me in the beginning, "You're not waking up because you have to pee.  You're getting up to pee because you're not sleeping deeply.")  The last time I got up, I noticed it was just beginning to get light out, and I laid in bed but could not get back to sleep.  I got up to have a small bowl of cereal and take 2 valerian (a mild herb sort of like chamomile).  That usually does the trick on the rare occasions when I can't sleep.  Nope.  Still awake.  By then, it was almost 6 am, and I thought, "Great, I'll probably just fall asleep and then Ken's alarm will go off."

So, my next step was to move to my son's room since the kids are with their grandparents this week.  Jamie's room is the darkest and quietest, so I grabbed my three pillows, my earplugs, and my dark sock/eyemask (I'm so high maintenance now) and moved.  Finally, FINALLY, I fell asleep and slept right through until 9:15, but I kept having these weird dreams about my sleep being interrupted.  I dreamed that Ken burst into the room looking for me and woke me up (he didn't).  I dreamed that my neighbors were having a big party (they're actually very quiet, solitary people) and their visitors were in OUR backyard, yup, you guessed it, waking me up.    The brain is a weird and wild thing, isn't it? 

I felt OK after those last three hours of sleep and figured my after-lunch nap would revive me further.  Guess what?  I couldn't sleep again!  Or if I did fall asleep, it was a light sleep and only for a few minutes.

As I was putting my contacts back in after my nap, I glanced at my bedtime pill reminder box and saw that Tuesday was still full.  "Oh!" I thought, "that explains it!  I forgot my medicines last night!"  Then I realized that today IS Tuesday and I DID take my meds last night.  See what happens to my brain when I don't sleep well?

Sleep is like this mysterious entity, so necessary but sometimes so elusive.  I'd try to describe it better than that, but my brain is fried!  Ironically, I did a research report on the science of sleep for my high school AP Biology class.  At the time, it was all purely academic, learning about the stages of sleep.  I had no idea that 20 years later, restoring the normal stages of sleep would become so critically important to me.  And it is critically important, isn't it?  Whatever else is causing CFS or perpetuating it, a lack of deep, restorative sleep keeps the destructive cycle going and makes all of its symptoms far worse.

I have no idea what happened last night.  I've actually been feeling pretty good this week, so it wasn't a crash.  Hopefully, tonight things will return to normal for me (if not, I won't hesitate to reach for the Ambien this time!)  If you are still suffering from sleep dysfunction yourself, I urge you to talk to your doctor about treatment.  It's not a cure, but it helps so much to get good sleep.

Night, night!