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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Morning Sickness

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.
–Charles Caleb Colton


My bedroom set just not my bedroom
I'm betting that ¾ of you who have me in your reader or follow my blog zipped right on over here to see if you could pick up a piece of juicy news while you were in blogland. Unfortunately, you've been deceived by my clever ruse to get you to read my long-winded and self-absorbed ramblings. I am not making an announcement that I'm pregnant. But just the hint of mischief (have you seen Mr. Bug?) got you to click on over. And now that you're here, you're on the edge of your seat waiting to hear what I'll say next. Or. I've completely alienated you and you're never coming back to read my blog again. In either case, we have shock value, which prompted you to action. The title of this post refers to the fact that I am just not a morning person. I never really have been. I am sick of mornings. Why can't mornings be in the afternoon? Add to that the fact that I've been dealing with a string of seriously annoying migraines since the end of August of last year and we have a recipe for a pointless rant.

I had my first migraine when I was 14 years old. At the time, I didn't know it was a migraine, but I remember that day well. It was a Sunday (see, I told you I remembered) and I just wanted to hide in the cool darkness of my room. In my early 20's I suffered frequent migraines, but for some reason they went away and I haven't had much problem with them since. Until the middle of last year, that is. I kept a tally and at the worst, I had 14 migraines in 16 days. The past few months the migraines have settled down quite a bit, but I had four last week (or maybe it was only three. I forget. But four sounds like it'll get more sympathy), which takes its toll on my mornings (I'm getting round to that); fatigue is one of the symptoms of a migraine.

I did quite a bit of research on migraines when they started showing up again with such alarming regularity. On the average, migraines occur at 6:00 am. I'm not one of those average people. I don't like mornings, and my migraines must know it, because they show up around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. My best cure for a migraine is two tablets of Excedrin. One dose of Excedrin contains roughly the equivalent of caffeine contained in two cups of coffee. And I'm not a consumer of caffeine in its most common forms (coffee, tea and soda). So this complicates my mornings even further because I am so buzzed from the caffeine and the post-headache symptoms (which tend towards the euphoria side) that I am usually awake until 3:00 am. You can see how difficult this makes mornings when the kids have to be out the door by 8:15. On post-migraine days, I usually have a nap after they go to school. But this causes more problems because then I can't sleep again the next night and I'm sleepy the next morning, which makes me want to take a nap.

After a week full of migraines last week I've been really fighting with sleep this week. My clock is all messed up. I want to sleep when it is day time and stay awake and play all night. I ashamedly admit that I had a nap on more than one occasion this week, further complicating the whole morning situation. I've been in a pretty low mood, trudging through the week without much interest in any of the things I love. Today is Saturday. I slept until noon. And guess what? I feel the best I have all week long. The best I've felt in two weeks, actually. I woke up with a desire to conquer the world. Or at least the laundry. However, with half the day already gone, it leaves less time for conquering. My chores aren't finished (there was a lot left undone this week while I was busy avoiding daylight hours) and I haven't been grocery shopping yet. I don't know if there'll be time left in the 'respectable' hours of the day to get everything done and have time to play (obviously, I'm on my 'lunch break' now). My clock is seriously messed up. I'm going to need to move to Australia to get back on a regular schedule. I think that the 14-16 hour time difference should just about work out so that I'm awake when the normal people are up and doing things and sleepy when it is time to be in bed.

After all that, I don't have a suitable ending for my rant about sleep and how much I hate it because I never feel like I get enough and it is always interrupting my playtime, so I'll just make a few notes. I've been fighting with sleep for as long as I remember. The quote I put up at the top of the post is my favorite quote about sleep. And the picture of that gorgeous bedroom? That is my actual bedroom set, but not my actual bedroom. I stole that off the furniture store web-site. I haven't made my bed yet today.

3 comments:

  1. I feel your pain, and share your reversed day/night cycle! :(

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  2. Naps are vastly under-rated in this country. Many parts of the world consider naps (siestas) an integral part of the day. It is only in America that we feel a nap is a source of a shame. But I'm declaring it now. I love naps! I'm a napper, and I'm not ashamed. :-)

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  3. I love naps too. Unfortunately mine usually come at the expense of a few of my son's brain cells, since I sometimes put a movie on to keep him drugged while I sleep. Only sometimes though. Other times I cheat myself of precious quiet-house time and actually sleep while he is sleeping... anyway, I guess I will take them no matter the cost sometimes!

    I'm really sorry to hear about your migraines this week, that's the pits. No fair!

    Lastly, I loved your thought, "I woke up with a desire to conquer the world. Or at least the laundry." Sometimes when I get the laundry all done, I feel like I have conquered the world, ha ha : ). But especially when I can do that AND wash dishes in the same day! Throw in grocery shopping, and you might as well make me queen of the universe.

    Hugs!

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