The Monday Rant: Insomnia Yet Again

I haven't posted for a week, maybe two. I can't remember because insomnia affects a person's memory. Today is the 26th. Starting around the Friday before Daylight Savings Time, I began having trouble sleeping at night. And I don't mean laying in bed for 3-4 hours thinking, "Oh sweet cherries, when will I ever fall asleep?" and then falling asleep for the next 4-5 hours. I mean laying in bed all night, dozing perhaps for 1 hour of the night and hearing my alarm at 7:00 and thinking, "Why can't I sleep at all ever?"

This went on until the 18th. I let it go more than a week because I've done this before but for only a few nights. Then I'm worn out and sleep easily. But on the 18th, I took melatonin. I slept 4 hours, then spent the next 4 hours tossing, turning, and not sleeping. On the 19th, same thing. On Wednesday, my parents gave me an all-natural, non-addictive, non-prescription sleep aid. They've given them to me twice before and both times the following things happened: the drug knocks me out, if I wake up in the night it knocks me out again, I wake feeling super groggy, I feel super groggy all day, and then the next night I sleep normally, and insomnia is gone. I don't like the super-groggy-day part, but it had been a week and a half! I needed sleep.

Nothing happened. I did not sleep at all Wednesday night.

Thursday I went to the doctor. She asked me everything WebMD suggested and that I had already done or ruled out. I'm not bored. I'm getting exercise. I'm not watching TV in bed. I'm not on electronics right before bed. Nothing has changed in the furniture. I'm not too hot or too cold. There are no major life events. My job is not stressful. In short, there is no good reason why I should not be sleeping. She prescribed me something to help me sleep.

I went to drop my prescription off at the pharmacy, and they told me that it wasn't covered by my insurance, it was super expensive, and they'd call the doctor to get them to change it to something that would still help me sleep but be covered by insurance. So guess who didn't get the prescription for Thursday night? Yeah.

Friday I went and got my blood drawn because they're going to do some tests to see if there's anything there that would help explain this.

Caleb told me to call the doctor's to try to expedite the prescription process. I explained my situation and the nurse said, "Oh, we haven't heard anything about that." At this point, I'm so tired and my patience is so thin. I don't know whether to be mad at the pharmacy for not calling, or the doctor for not writing anything down. Regardless of my anger, the nurse said they'd look into it. I called again a few hours later and they said they took care of it with the pharmacy. I called the pharmacy and they said it was in filling.

THANK GOD!

Caleb was taking the van that night and my car was still dead, so I borrowed a car from a fellow camp family (Thank you, Hulets!) and picked up my prescription!

Friday night, I slept 6 hours! Normally, I would be quite discontent with so little sleep, but it felt wonderful. Saturday night was the same thing. And last night I slept 7.5 hours! At this point, my only fear is what will happen when I stop taking the medicine, because I'm only supposed to take it for a few days. (Else it could be habit forming and ineffective.)

All this said, don't take your sleep for granted.

Love and Zolpidem,

Leah Joy

P.S. On the bright side, I guess this is practice for when we have kids?