Don't feel good

I haven't slept through the night for the past six nights and it has finally caught up with me. I don't feel good.

A frustrating pattern has emerged: I take a medication that my dad told me will work more efficaciously if I take it at night, according to an article he read on some online news source. So when I swallow this pill, I use water to wash it down, naturally. I sometimes take ibuprofen at night if my damaged knee is hurting, which it often does in the winter's cold, and I take a swig of water with that, too. And then there's my great big giant enormous glucosamine tablet, so big that I keep expecting to have to use one of those enormous pill syringes that vets use to get medicine down the throats of horses. That thing takes a big gulp of water to send it on its way.

With all that medicine and the accompanying gulps of water I take right before bed, you can probably see where I'm going with this, right?

I have a bladder that seems to hold about a teaspoon of pee. I know that you yourself were lying awake wondering about that, so you're welcome. This is made even worse by the fact that I had two babies with bowling ball heads who pressed mercilessly against my pelvic floor for months on end., weakening the muscles. You're welcome again. And I know from everything my doctor and assorted women's magazines tell me that I should be sitting here kegeling madly as I type, but I don't. Kegel, that is. If I kegeled as much as I type, I could probably drink a 55 gallon drum of iced tea through a straw and have the fortitude to hold it in all night long. Really, you don't have to keep thanking me.

So. At about four o'clock every stinking morning for the last six, I've gotten up to pee and haven't been able to get back to sleep. Once I'm awake, my mind buzzes like a hive of bees, thinking about all the stuff I need to get done. February is going to be a busy month and I have deadlines looming for several different projects I'm working on and aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.....

Wide awake at four a.m. is not a good thing to be. Especially since I haven't been able to catch up on the sleep I've missed. Oh, I have fallen asleep in the afternoons here and there -- I can't help it; I get so drowsy -- but that tends to make things worse. Sleeping during the day only makes me tend to go to bed later at night. Which is what you might call "counterproductive."

I was so frustrated by sleeplessness that I took a Benadryl capsule last night; the only thing that came of it was that I slept until five a.m. instead of four and nearly wet myself trying to get to the bathroom an hour past my usual time.

So I don't feel good. I feel a little whiny and achey. I feel bone-tired and grouchy. I have PMS and a sour outlook on life. The girls are on my last available nerve. The house is an absolute wreck -- the dining room table is a mess both over and under, there are dishes in the sink and dust all over the television screen. The sky outside is the depressing color of skim milk.

I know my cousins Lilly, Susie and Carol all suffer from insomnia. At a Mom's Night Out gathering a few months ago, I found that the entire table of eight women all have chronic problems with not enough sleep. I wonder if all our combined issues of little pains and nervous tummies and headaches, forgetfulness and irritability can all be chalked up to the fact that we rarely have a decent night's rest?

If that's true, no wonder there's such a proliferation of sleep medications advertising on television lately -- Lunesta, Ambien, Rozerem -- all of them urging the bleary-eyed contingent to call their doctors.