Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Getting sleep used to be one of my biggest struggles. I would wake up 4-6 times a night, sometimes going right back to sleep, sometimes staying wide awake.

I recently went back and read my journal. I only wrote sporadically, usually at times of great difficulty. Even so, Its strange to see my desperate handwriting scrawled across an unlined page. One entry begins "today is 60 days with less than 1 hour sleep" (and it gets worse from there). I wrote that when I was on a particularly bad medication stretch that was clearly messing with me. Incidentally, it was also during the time I got engaged (such a committed guy).

I think I was only able to stay awake alive during those years was because my pain was so acute in the morning all the time. It kept me forcibly alert.

Now that things are changing for me (now that I have times without pain), I get waves of exhaustion unlike anything I've felt before. I read an article once that said you can't play "catch up" on the weekend for lost sleep through the week... that article should come and have a talk with my body, as it seems to be demanding years of back pay.

In the last two weeks, I've gone to bed at a reasonable hour. Then I've managed by some miracle above to sleep through the whole night!! Then I will wake up hours after Neil goes to work. So with weeks of getting 10 to 12 hours a night (a night!), plus sometimes a nap in the day (yep tack on 2 more hrs), I still feel so fatigued.

Once I fit in a bit of exercise and an online post and maayybe the dishes in the sink, I'm spent.

I'm accepting this as just a new phase in my healing. So far its better than any others because the sharp corners have rounded off my pain and I finally have rest.

On the other hand, I've never been more ready to jump back into life with both feet, yet it feels like I'm dragging cement shoes.

I got a wonderful card shortly after my accident that said "Grow Where You're Planted" - this is advice my restless soul has gone back to again and again. It helps me accept that right now I am in need of sleep, which is okay. So if you are looking for me, I'll be planted in my bed.

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