Monitor Code = Z...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

If you're one of my two or three loyal readers, you know I am an insomniac--a life-long one. But for the past couple of months, it's gotten really bad. I can't make myself go to bed before midnight and many times it'll be 2am. Then I get up at 4 or 4:30 to go to work. The trouble is, I seem to have my days and nights mixed up now and can't function up to par until 4pm--that's quitting time.

I find myself sitting at my desk trying my hardest to stay awake. I need to find some test data, so I open up good old Toad and run a query to knock out all records in a table with a monitor code of Z. Next thing I know, I'm the one with a monitor code of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It's a miserable situation and each day seems to last 24 hours. It's hard to think, much less write boring stuff all day long.

I had a doctor's appointment last week and he put me on Ambien. I hate sleeping pills. Every one I've tried has left me groggy the next day. But with this one, I was already groggy. So I don't know if it's a natural sleepiness or it's drug-induced. The last two nights, I've cut the pill in half. Still sleepy, even though I'm taking the pill much earlier. Last weekend I actually slept until 9:45, thanks to the little pill. I'm sleeping more than I have in years, but still find myself nearly comatose until 4pm.

A couple of weekends ago, I was trying to study the online course I'm taking in project management. After ten minutes I gave up and actually went to bed to take a nap. I never take a nap, but just felt like I really needed to listen to what Mother Nature was trying to tell me. I slept from 2pm to 7pm. Now that's a nap!



I hate being this way. I've always been a morning person, but not any more. I'm worried about falling asleep while driving--even on my 20-minute drive to work. In the morning when I wake up, I stagger to my recliner while my husband brings me my cup of coffee (complete with just the right amount of creamer and sugar). The coffee no longer helps to wake me, but it sure tastes good going down. Hopefully, after a couple of weeks, the Ambien will get me on a more normal sleep cycle and I can quit taking it. Life will return to normal and my usual four or five hours of sleep a night will return. I will be able to keep my eyes open at work...unless I'm stuck in a boring meeting. My concentration will return and I'll be more productive at work and at home.



But for now, it's time to take the pill and get ready for bed in hopes of a decent night's sleep.

To Sleep...Perchance to Dream

Insomnia...
I've had it almost all of my 55 years. Lately it's been even worse. I have even quit trying to go to bed before midnight. Part of me screams "Go to bed" and the other part that always wins the argument says, "What's the point?".

If I get two hours of sleep a night, I'm doing good. You would think I could get a lot done since I don't sleep, but I'm no Tom Edison. At least he did something useful with his insomnia. I just stay in bed. I don't get shook up because I can't sleep. Nothing is bothering me. It's just my chemical makeup.

The only time I was cured of insomnia was when I was taking Paxil for panic attacks. Paxil fixed the serotonin problem I had with my brain. I slept like a baby, eight hours at a stretch. When I awoke, I was in the same position as when I fell asleep. After years of being on Paxil, I decided to take myself off of it. It took months. If I missed a dose, my eyesight would jiggle. If I quit taking it cold turkey for a few days; not only would my eyesight jiggle, I would also be in a constant state of extreme anger.

So I went off of it very slowly, gradually reducing the size of the pill to a grain of sand. Now I'm back on the generic version of Paxil, and it's not helping in the least. So next time I get it filled, I'm going to get the brand name.

I don't like taking sleeping pills. I have to get up at 4am and sleeping pills leave me groggy half the day. That's way more miserable than staying awake all night. Years ago, my doctor put me on Halcion, telling me it was completely safe. One night I took the Halcion, then went out on the deck to relax in the lounge chair for a while. The next thing I knew, it was morning and I found myself in bed, fully dressed with even my shoes and socks. And I couldn't remember even going to bed. That was my last dose of Halcion. Later, I heard reports of people taking Halcion and waking up in other towns with no idea how they got there. So it's hard telling what I did on all those other nights and just never woke up until morning.

I remember being as young as four or five and not being able to sleep all night. One night I stared at the bedpost so long that it turned into the Wizard of Oz...and not the nice old man Oz behind the curtain, but the mean one that smelled of brimstone and screamed all the time. That's scary stuff for a five-year-old, but I never screamed. I was too scared to scream.

That same little kid used to lay awake and listen to the wooden stairs creak. I just knew those stairs were actually little bitty coffins, and at night the skeletons that lived in them would open the lids and come out. They'd spend a few hours every night going up and down those stairs. By morning, they were always back in their little stair coffins and quiet. At least those skeletons eventually got some sleep.

My insomnia got even worse as a teen. Being an avid reader, I would just turn on the light and pick up a book. But one night someone saw my light. The jerk knocked on one bedroom window three times, then went to the other window and knocked three times. I thought I was going to have a heart attack at 14! All I could do was shut off the light and lay there. That really happened. It wasn't a product of my fertile imagination and lack of sleep.

At least my insomnia is no longer accompanied by outright fear of skeletons or knocking neighbors. I have to have the TV on, mostly due to the tinnitus in my ears. The TV noise helps drown out the roaring and high-pitched noises playing in my head. I rarely ever get interested enough in something on TV to actually watch it, since about 90 percent of the TV channels have those stupid infomercials on all night.

Insomnia and fever are a really bad combination. When I was six, I had such a high fever that Mom put me in my little sister's crib to keep me from falling out of bed while I was thrashing around. The fever really stirred up my imagination.

Sometime in the middle of the night, a full-sized skeleton appeared in the doorway of my bedroom. This wasn't one of those little bitty guys that lived in the stair coffins. The skeleton started walking towards me, and as he walked, skin started appearing on his bones. By the time he reached the side of my bed and turned towards me, the skin had been covered by a suit. Then a face manifested itself. OH MY GOD...it was none other than... Lawrence Welk! He didn't have his baton with him, but I'm sure that would've been the next thing to materialize.

That was one time I was finally able to let out a really loud blood-curdling scream. As soon as Mom turned on the light, Lawrence vanished. Terrified, I had to tell her about the skeleton that grew skin, and then turned into Lawrence Welk. She must've thought I was nuts. That hallucination is still firmly embedded in my mind. And I never liked Lawrence Welk again.

Now when I have a fever, I end up in a halfway state of sleeping and being awake. A bizarre slide show plays in my mind. Thousands of Salvador Dali-like images play, flipping from one to the other in half-second increments. If I could only remember all of them and paint them like I see them, I'd be a rich artist. At least the slide show isn't scary. It's bizarre, but at least I'm not being scared out of my wits.

The lack of sleep doesn't keep me from going to work and being productive. That is, unless I am forced to sit in a meeting that holds absolutely no interest for me. At one meeting a few years ago, the room was packed. I wasn't able to sit at the conference room table, so I just grabbed a chair. During the next hour, I did everything I know to do to stay awake. I fidgeted and changed positions constantly, but it didn't do much good. At one point, I leaned forward and put my arms on my knees. That was a bad move. I fell asleep and began to tumble forward out of the chair.

Luckily, I woke up halfway between the chair and hitting the floor with my head. I caught myself with my hand. Then I pretended to have dropped something and acted like I was merely picking up something I'd dropped. I just hoped to God I hadn't been snoring.

Well, it's getting to be close to a normal bedtime. I like to get my pajamas on fairly early, and watch a little TV in the living room. But lately, I've been sitting in front of the PC. That may be part of my recent "really-bad" insomnia problems. So for now, I think I'll sign off...get my jammies on, brush my teeth, and take my meds. But if you see another blog I've written tonight, you know I've failed again.

...wish me luck and sweet dreams.