Awake in the Land of Sleep

Its just before three AM, and I'm awake. Recently, this is about when I've been waking up; today, I only slept for about an hour, waking up around 11:30, and I've been awake since then. I found some time ago that when I'm on the cusp of sleep like this, but not actually going to sleep, it helps me to have some kind of distraction -- the chill of the room is usually enough, but in cases of this sort, turning on the bed side light, or the radio, does the trick. And indeed, turning on the light did let me sleep for about half an hour. I think it's that when I'm dozing, I sometimes start thinking about things, usually things that I can't resolve, and then I get into a loop. The extra stimulation is enough to stop that cogitation.

But tonight, I'm flat-out awake. What they say is to get up, get out of bed, in that case, and do things until you're sleepy again. I tried that, rattling (quietly) the walker over to the bathroom, and back, but when I got here, I was still awake. So I levered myself back into bed and did some stretching exercises. The hardest one is to leave my leg on the sheets of the bed and move it (the buzzword is to abduct it; were my daughter here, I'd point out the Latin roots) toward the left. I can move the leg through writhing my foot back and foot, but commanding the major leg muscles to move is usually non-effective. I think they're the same muscles as are used in walking, so as I clatter around the house, I am strengthening them -- and ever so often, I get just a whisper of movement, so little that it could be a twitch, but I'll take it. My experience with my shoulder demonstrated that strength does come back. The therapist looked at me lying in bed and said that she could clearly see where the thigh muscle in my left leg had atrophied - just from a week of non-use. I would be astounded by that but that this is exactly what happened with my arm -- and I got that back. I'll get this back, too. It's just going to take awhile.

I was thinking the other day about comments made by people in the hospital. I take drugs to keep my cholesterol levels down, and to keep my blood pressure under control. When someone was checking me out for the first time, they'd always say 'you have high cholesterol; you have high blood pressure', and I'd say that I did not, because it was under control with the drugs. I suppose that to them its the same thing if you do, without drugs, or do, period, but it isn't the same to me. I know that I should pay more attention to these things. I find that when people talk about how to cook so that you lessen the impact on your body, they tend to me to sound supercilious, and I quickly get the feeling that nothing I can do -- more accurately, nothing that I am likely to do -- in the way of eating will satisfy these people. I understand that the most succinct statement going around these days is something along the lines of "Eat less, mostly grains and vegetables. Not much meat". That always sounds so incredibly boring to me. Like most people, I suspect, I like what I like because I grew up liking it. Tonight we had meatloaf, fries, and hot cranberry salad. I suppose I can take some solace from the apples and cranberry, but I'll bet you the ebony and silver walking stick that I don't have yet that any nutritionist worth their salt would shudder at the meat, the fries, and the sugars. I don't want to say there's nothing I can do about that. Its more truthful to say that there's nothing I choose to do about it.

I wonder if drugs will ever be custom blended so that you get a pill, or liquid, or whatever that contains all of the drugs you're currently taking. I suppose that for starters (and just for starters) the various people with financial interest in drugs would have to agree. Oh, well, scratch that idea.

If we ever build a house, the bed side tables will be much larger, the lamp won't be on them. They'll -- I don't know, wrap around, somehow, to increase storage. But the storage would have to be visible ; not 'gee I put that in there four years ago; is it really still in there? I thought we threw that away!'