Sing to the tune of, "Oscar Mayer Wiener" --- Oh, I wish I were a better sleep-ER!

Yes, it’s after noon.  Yes, I’m just getting “up”.  Whatever “up” means. 

Most of yesterday, I was pretty motivated.  Yes, I wrote "I WAS pretty."  I don’t feel very pretty right now with those sheet wrinkle imprints on my face.  Ick.  Ok, so you might think that’s pretty, but that’s you.

Anyway, so where did the motivation go?  It’s still here.  It just took “extra” to get moving today.  What a tough night!  I sign offline fairly late last night only to discover my neck is flared and has decided to send some pain signals down my right arm.  Really?  I threw up three days prior, WHY is this acting up now?  Is it a joke?  No, it’s just how things work in my world.  No planning, just going along with whatever my body decides it’s going to do.  Pain. Pain. Pain.  Pain in the neck it says. I grimace, roll my eyes and think of the ways I can just get through it.  AGAIN.

If you want to get to know me this is it.  It’s not pretty.  Or at least I don’t think so.  So, the pain makes me really grouchy. If you sprained your ankle and suddenly you were laid up when you had plans, I would imagine you would be a little pissy too.  But this is supposed to be time to lay down and get some rest.  Not last night.  Nuh, uh!

I could tell you each and every little detail of the tossing and turning and groping around for the icepack and finally getting comfortable only to have Frankie decide she’s going to play with some toy she hasn’t touched for weeks at 2 am.  WHAT?  Really?  I thought you were my “helper”?!  I forgot, that’s the other one.  It must be the pain clouding my thoughts. 

Speaking of the other one, she was perched, PERCHED on my hip.  Staring at me and every time I moved, she gingerly balanced and resettled as I did.  THAT is a helper.   Unless you count that her little paw was precisely in my hip joint that is a source of tenderness, but she’s “helping” so I didn’t fuss.  Thanks Renata.

Merle, poor guy couldn’t settle.  He kept asking me how he could help.  Sometimes, the best way to help is for him to get some sleep himself.  He’s got to get up and drive and go to work.  I just sit up and here I am, I’m at work.  How glamorous is working from home now?  So, he finally gets to sleep.

When I’m in pain like that, I like to have the t.v. on so I can focus on the dialogue hoping it will divert my attention enough to where the pain becomes background noise.  The show?  Law & Order marathons are the BEST.  The theme song to the show alone has the ability to make me feel sleepy even in the middle of the day.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the show, but it really is a good one to have on in the background if you don’t want explosions, screaming, bloody warfare, or bursts of sound effects blaring over your subconscious if you do get to the important business of falling asleep.

I juuust dropped off to sleep and I hear a gawd awful sound.  Most every human being and all animals are familiar with it.  A grunting ogre who may or may not have had too many beans playing with a police car that has it’s sirens malfunctioning, and throw in Bert and Ernie who are obnoxiously screeching in pain.  I don’t know that’s just what immediately came to my mind.  You let me know if you can think of another description (let’s have some fun with this) as it’s the sound we all know and don’t love (although IT SAVES LIVES and this isn’t some kind of ANTI-Emergency alert system blog.) 

It works.  It woke me up.  FRAAAACK! 

Heck, it woke Merle up and he can’t hear!  He’s scrambling for the remote so it doesn’t wake me up (he’s so thoughtful) and we both resettle.  You know what that one is like.  Your heart is racing and you have to really try to get your thoughts to calm again.   Then there’s the pain.

I digress.  I’ve shared a pretty good dose of what it’s like on a bad night.  This is one of many scenarios, but if I write them all down and share them maybe I can get a book deal.  

But wait!  There’s more!!!

This morning…Merle’s just barely gotten out the door.  I could hear him trying to be very quiet.  I hear everything, so he really does TRY to be quiet.  By everything, I mean, I hear when the coffee drips onto the heat plate of the coffee maker, I hear it when he opens the vitamins and shakes to get one to drop onto his palm, and I hear it when he walks down the stairs.  

I’m creepy like that.  Really. 
Bat Girl hearing or something. 
Who knows! *throwing up my hands!*  

He gets out the door, I start to nod off again, feeling that the pain isn’t so blaring as it was last night and I’m allowing myself to think................. finally!

Wait for it…  Wait for it…

ELECTRIC CIRCULAR SAW!  HAMMER. HAMMER.  HAMMER. 
Sound of a ladder being slammed upside the building (unfortunately all too familiar sounds) and
I can’t even write what I thought as it was such a jumbled combination of wondering “what the he**!!” and the usual limbo between being awake AWAKE and still being just a little bit asleep.  I was trying so hard NOT to think too much because I didn’t WANT to be awake yet.  In no way, did I feel rested and my neck was starting to rev up again.

Sigh.  I just laid still.  Didn’t move much and kept telling myself that it would stop soon.  After a few times of being summoned out of sleep by the hammer thwacking, I woke up a couple hours later! 

Yes, sleep!  Not good sleep but at least I didn’t feel as hung over as I had the first time the circular saw started.  Is my neck still wonky?  Oh yeah.  I’ll have to battle that for a few days at least.  It’s just par for the course from what’s going on full time in my spine. 

Defrost time and then here I am, writing.  So, it may not seem like much to you, but jamming out a blog after all of that and still hurting.  I consider that a victory!