Monday, October 25, 2010

For the first time since my surgery two weeks ago, I was able to sleep in my bed last night. Up till now, I’ve taken up residency on one of our sofas. Comfortable as it has been, it’s just not the same and doesn’t afford the same restful sleep.

Our bed is one that’s raised up, hence my not being able to get into it since my surgery. Normally, I don’t need a step to get into it, but post my operation, I couldn’t quite get in it without feeing pain. I did try, and once I was there, the whole how do I get out of bed was a bit perplexing, for my doctor has had me literally turning on my side and rolling over to get up in order to keep pressure off of my incision. Not the most comforting thing when you’re faced with being waaaaaay off the ground.

So, it’s been the sofa or a chair for my sleeping local for the past two weeks. But last night changed all of that, and I got the first solid night’s sleep in two weeks. And then it happened. As is often the case with me, my body, being introduced to the whole concept of sleeping, something it doesn’t get an overabundance of, decided to get greedy. Normally, I get four to five ours of sleep a night, and that’s plenty. That’s been the case the past few days. But today found me exhausted. I did something rare for me. I went in to take a nap in the afternoon, my daughter having volunteered to pick up her younger brother from school. The minute my head hit my pillow, in my very own bed, I was out cold. And that’s the way I remained for the next six hours, not moving a muscle!

As I mentioned, taking a nap is rare for me—something I maybe do once a year, and that’s when I’m sicker than a dog. So today was definitely strange. And as it got closer and closer to dinnertime, me still sound asleep, my kids wondered what they should do. Later, I found out that they discussed it and inferred from my sleeping that I was beyond exhausted and let me sleep, though they did keep checking on me to make sure I was okay, you know—still alive.

Waking up completely disoriented, I stumbled my way into the kitchen and we had dinner shortly thereafter. In our family, dinnertime is spent with all of us gathered around the table engaged with one another. And tonight was no exception, as it’s one of our favorite parts of the day. That’s when I learned about how my kids had wondered if they should wake me or not. I told them I was glad that they hadn’t. It’s been a couple of hours since I awoke, and I swear that if I poured myself back into bed, I could sleep straight through until the morning. And that I’ll most likely do in a short while.

The experts say that a person cannot stockpile on sleep, but I disagree. For me, it’s always been like this, very little sleep seven days a week for long months, and then one day, I feel the overwhelming need to sleep. Not that I’ve been dragging or run down prior. It’s just my body’s way of telling me that a nice stockpile is in order. And once I get that “fix,” I’m good to go for many more months. And this time, I’m oh, so grateful to be able to get that fix in my very own bed. What a treat!