What I Won't Take For Granted

Thankfulness is a spiritual discipline, and it's one I have a hard time cultivating in times like these when my sleep issues are at their worst. What's more, I've found that the term "thankful" has become too trite to be useful for me. Particularly in Christian circles, it seems (and for everyone once the month of November hits), we talk so much about being thankful that it almost becomes nothing more that a rote recitation.

I am reminding myself lately that there are things in my life that I must not take for granted -- things I have right now that I have not always had and will not always have, and I MUST make a point of appreciating their presence while I have them. Here are a few:

Hot Showers: Hubby and I are still entertaining the idea of living out of the country during retirement. And we learned during our week in Panama a few years ago that very few homes there have hot water for showers. Let me tell you, people: cold showers are such a miserable experience for me that I might rather just let myself stink. The vast majority of the time I take a shower anymore, I let myself feel the wonderful hot water on my body and take a minute to stand there and just flat out enjoy the feeling. A time may come when I will long for this, so I don't want to take it for granted now.

Breathing: When I get a cold, nine times out of ten, it settles in my chest, and I end up coughing for weeks -- many miserable, exhausting weeks. I avoid sick people like the plague because a cold just isn't a minor deal for me. I have caught myself many times, while lying in bed in the morning getting ready to get up, taking big, deep breaths and just loving the feeling of air flowing through my lungs smoothly. I know that at any time, I could be exposed to germs that will temporarily disrupt that. I make a point now to appreciate the times when I can breathe.

Being Able to See Enough to Read: My mother had macular degeneration. My eye doctor reminded me the other day that I should probably take some eye health supplements to head off the possibility of having similar problems. Macular degeneration manifests itself in blurry vision right at the center of where you focus, which means it makes it difficult and eventually impossible to read. I am a serious reader. Reading is integral to my life right now: I read books, magazines, student papers, scripts, online articles, emails, my own plethora of to-do lists . . . not being able to read would alter my life profoundly. I like my life. I want to be able to read. And since there's a chance I won't be able to someday, I treasure every day that I can now.

Being Able to Think Straight; My father had Alzeimer's disease. Since there seems to be a genetic component to that, I have always known that there was a possibility of my developing the disease as well. The older I get and the more my father's siblings become similarly debilitated, the more I think about that possible future for me. Someday, I may not be able to remember things or understand what people say to me or keep my own thoughts straight. I want to appreciate the ability to think while I have it.

My Daughters' Presence: This is a biggie. I have a twenty-year-old and a sixteen-year-old. The oldest could very well have chosen to go away to college but didn't. The youngest may very well make that choice in a couple years. I have never enjoyed my daughters more than I enjoy them right now: they are intelligent, caring, thoughtful, FUN young ladies, and wonder of wonders, they seem to enjoy spending time with hubby and me. I know I am blessed. I know someday they will have families and careers, and Mom and Dad will move down the priority list . . . which will be as it should be. So I welcome every moment I can have with them now and treasure up these times in my heart.


Someday, these blessings may be gone. And because I serve a loving and gracious God, I know when that time comes, there will be other blessings to appreciate. But I refuse to get to that day and realize I didn't appreciate what I had while I had it. No matter how crazy my days get . . . no matter how grouchy I am from sleep deprivation . . . no matter how discouraged I am about the direction of our nation . . . I must never, ever take God's gifts for granted.

Je Suis Elijah Under the Broom Bush

My pastor preached on 1 Kings 19 last Sunday -- the story of Elijah running away to Horeb after his big victory over the prophets of Baal (in chapter 18). This story has been a meaningful one in my life: God used it in the past to teach me about my depression.

You see, Elijah is depressed here. "He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die." That's depression. And one of the first things to note here is that it came after a mountaintop moment . . . which is not uncommon. We should brace ourselves for a possible crash after a spiritual high, especially if we know we are naturally susceptible to such crashes.

But what's the first thing God does for him? He let him sleep. He let him sleep a lot. He slept, then he woke up to eat, then he slept again. I've learned that for me, a lot of my depression is connected to sleep deprivation. I'm TIRED. I need rest. Just getting a good nap usually helps my outlook significantly.

And what's the other thing God does for him right away? "All at once, an angel touched him and said, 'Get up and eat.'" He gave him food. The man had been running for his life and presumably had not stopped to get any nourishment. In fact, the angel fed him twice: sleep, eat, sleep, eat. Taking care of my body -- so important for my emotional health. Depression is a physiological thing to a great degree; it is profoundly influenced by maladies in my physical self. A change in diet often improves my emotional state.

Now, note what Elijah says in verse 10 when God asks him what's up:

"I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too."

Poor Elijah. It's all about him, isn't it? Now, in a sense this response is understandable in his situation, but if you keep reading, you notice that he makes this exact same speech again in verse 14. The man seems to be rehearsing this lament; he's got it down, memorized to the word, ready to spout to anyone who asks. Meditating on your laments will not pull you out of the doldrums.

So God does one of those awesome things that He did with Old Testament prophets that we often wish He would do with us: He came to Elijah, directly.

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper."

My pastor said on Sunday that the phrase "gentle whisper" is sometimes translated "the sound of silence." Often, I realize that my depression is exacerbated because I am paying so much attention to the storm and noise. God speaks in the sound of silence. I need to ignore the noise and listen to God in the silence.

So, what does God do next for Elijah? He gives him a job -- three people to go anoint in His name to take over important roles. In other words, stop moping around and do something productive, something for someone else.

Then He filled Elijah in on something he actually probably knew but just conveniently ignored in his self-pitying rambling: "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel -- all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him."

Elijah wasn't "the only one left" like he claimed. There were seven thousand more Israelites staying faithful to God . . . Elijah just wasn't paying attention to them. He went off into the wilderness, even leaving his servant behind, and pouted alone. Isolation increases depression. We were made to need each other.

One of the things about the Bible is that it doesn't idealize its heroes. Peter denies Christ, Moses kills a man, David commits adultery . . . we see the spiritual giants in their worst moments as well as their best. God needed us to see, first of all, that these were real people with real problems and failures, just like us. And He also needed us to see models for how to deal with these problems. When I'm under my broom bush, praying to die (which, praise Jesus, happens far less these days), I need to stop obsessing over my misery . . . get a good night's sleep . . . cut the sugar from my diet for a while . . . make a plan to get something productive done . . . and get out of the house and with some friends.

Don't tell me the stories of the Bible are not practical for our times.

Giving My Doctors a Break

I have such mixed feelings about the medical community these days. On the one hand, I have genuine appreciation for people who dedicate their lives to caring for and healing the sick. I have friends who are nurses and I know how hard they work and how exhausting it is, physically and emotionally. I'm sure it's the same for doctors. I couldn't do what they do, and we desperately need people to do these things.

On the other hand, I find my dealings with the medical community to be consistently frustrating. Most of it is the "bureaucracy" around them, I suspect. It's probably a lot like public education. The required paperwork and red tape and hoops to jump through make it all an ineffective circus; if teachers could just TEACH, for crying out loud,

I have friends with medical problems that nobody seems to be able to find an answer for. And I've experienced some of this, too. In the five years we lived in Sioux City, I saw seven different physicians trying to find answers to my sleep problems and never did. My husband has some kind of sinus and drainage issue that doctors have been working on for years to no avail. My regular bronchitis I get with any cold -- no doctor can ever give me anything that makes it better.

It drives me insane sometimes that we can spend all the time and money and hassle and never get answers. First, we go through the necessary processes to get a diagnosis -- which may involve lab work (which takes time to get results from) and imaging (which you have to make an appointment for elsewhere for AND takes time to get results from), and we usually have to harass the doctor's office to find out if they've received those results and then make another appointment (which we pay for) to go over the results.

Then the doctor makes his hypothesis about what is actually wrong (because that's all a diagnosis is, really -- an educated guess based on the evidence in front of them) and suggests a possible treatment. Said treatment will involve prescriptions (to be picked up at another place, and often waited for) and behavioral modifications (snort this stuff up your nose three times a day) and will, of course, require time to see if it is working or not. Once we've established that it is NOT working (which seems to be the norm for us), then we have to make another appointment (which we again pay for) to have them come up with another possible treatment and go through the whole process again.

In the end, when nothing is working after several weeks of continued misery, we end up revisiting that hypothesis and judging whether it was incorrect in the first place . . . and coming up with a second hypothesis requiring a whole different set of treatment options . . . yada yada yada. SIGH.

I have to really fight the frustration I feel at my doctors. I like my doctors, usually. I particularly like my current primary doctor. But it is really tempting sometimes to feel like they either have no idea what they're doing, or aren't trying very hard, or perhaps are even stringing us along to keep us coming back to make more money off of our misery. (I don't think that often, but . . . )

However, as I said, I try to fight those frustrating feelings. The truth is, fixing a human body is not like fixing a machine. Machines are simple. If you know how a machine works, you can repair what is not working pretty easily. (And yet, how often have you found mechanic types who get stumped at what's wrong with, say, your car? Or your phone?)

The human body is NOT a simple machine, as much as we'd like to think so. Medical science learns more and more about how our bodies work every year, but there is still SO much they don't understand. But even if they knew everything about our physical workings, we are not just physical beings. We are spiritual beings. And our spiritual lives -- our thoughts, our beliefs, our emotions, our wills -- profoundly affect how our physical bodies function. I don't think medical science will ever be able to get a complete grasp on that, because science, by definition, is limited to what is observable.

So, it really shouldn't surprise me so much that doctors can't figure out why I don't sleep well. And I should stop expecting the answer to be as easy to find as a broken timing belt in a car engine. Even my car stumps my mechanic sometimes -- my body is an even greater mystery.

The Struggle Is Real

My husband falls asleep each night in, like, ten minutes. I mean, he turns out the light, rolls over, and starts snoring, just like that. Well, he doesn't snore anymore now that he has his CPAP machine, but in his spirit, he's sawing logs -- in about ten minutes.

This is just unfathomable to me. As a child, it was normal for me to lie in bed for a couple hours before I finally dozed off. It still takes at least thirty minutes, I think, on a good night.

I asked him last week, after you turn out the light to go to sleep, what are you thinking about? What's going through your brain? He said he usually starts to pray and falls asleep while he's praying. Well, what about the nights you don't fall asleep praying -- what are you thinking about? Oh, he's thinking about how comfortable the bed is . . . how cozy the blankets are . . . and then he's asleep.

Are you kidding me?

I told him about how my brain works when I try to go to sleep. An image will come to mind, completely unbidden -- say, of one of my students. And a scene will replay in my head of something that happened with her that day. And then my mind (again, completely of its own accord, I don't will this) will start imagining something I should have done when that event happened. Or what I should do or say to her next time that happens, or next time I see her. Not in a fretting, worrisome fashion; I'm not stressed or upset; it's just thoughts going through my brain.

Well, Hubby said, if I have those kind of thoughts come up, I just figure there's nothing I can do about that right now, and it's time to go to sleep.

Excuse me? What do you mean, you just figure? There's no "figuring" involved here! My mind runs unprovoked, without activation by my will. In fact, to turn the thoughts off is what requires an effort of the will -- and the effort it requires is so strong that it keeps me awake. (As my daughter would say, the struggle is real --  punctuated with a hashtag.)

Tell me I'm not weird. Tell me he's the oddball. The blessed, lucky oddball.

I wonder now if this is all by nature or nurture. I suspect I have taught myself over the years to allow my brain to work this way at night. (There have been benefits -- I have had flashes of brilliance at 3am that ended up in a script or a lesson plan.) But might it have done this no matter how I trained it?

In any case, I'm hoping I can re-train. I took a class at my church in New Jersey where we learned to meditate. Perhaps I need to re-visit those lessons and figure out how to empty my mind when it is to my benefit to do so.

Because falling asleep in ten minutes . . . oh, Father in heaven. How glorious would that be!

Sleep . . . Again . . . Please

I've been debating this morning whether I should write about this. There's some freaky part of me that feels like if I tell the world, it kind of solidifies the problem and makes it more real (as if it isn't real now). And another part of me just feels like I'll be whining all over my blog in an unattractive manner. But another part of me thinks, maybe people will pray. And I feel like I need prayer.

I can't sleep.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while have probably read about my sleep saga in the past. If not, and you're dying of curiosity,  you can get caught up here. Suffice it to say, I've seen many doctors and sleep specialists over the years and tried many things to sleep and sleep well. I finally reached a point where I was sick of sedating myself every night and went cold turkey -- then I spent many nights trying to train my brain to turn off.

Things have gone pretty well in this arena for a while. I still keep Ambien around for the occasional difficult night, because my sleep is apparently light enough even when I do sleep that losing just a little can knock me for a loop for several days.

That's why this week has frightened me. Sunday night, I was wound up and knew I wouldn't go to sleep easily, so I took an Ambien. Nothing bothering me -- just wound up. It's the first week of school, and I suppose deep down, I've probably been anxious about that, but I really don't think that's the issue here. I promise you, I'm not laying awake worrying.

Monday night was a repeat of Sunday night, and I promised myself I wouldn't take any more Ambien this week -- I'm not about to get dependent on sleep meds again. But Tuesday night, 1:30 hit and I growled at the heavens as I got up to get a pill.

And again on Wednesday night . . . although Wednesday night the pill didn't even work. I still sat in my bed until 3:30 or so, desperately tired, but awake. Once I'm thinking about how badly I need to fall asleep, there's no going to sleep. Have you ever tried to consciously let go of consciousness? It doesn't work.

Last night, I refused myself the Ambien. I dozed some . . . woke up every hour or two most of the night . . . and never went back to sleep after 4:45. I think the last two nights, I've gotten about three hours of sleep each.

Folks, this is not sustainable. I can't function very long like this. I'm already a bit nervous about driving the carpool thirty minutes to Boerne and back today. And I don't know what to do. It's like my brain has forgotten how to let go.

I don't want to be back "there". I don't want to fight this battle anymore; I have too many other battles to fight right now. Forgive me if you respond with well-meaning advice and I seem dismissive -- I really doubt you can suggest something I haven't already heard and tried. Prayer. Please.

Jekyll and Hyde: More Mutt Adventures

Okay, I promise you all that this is not going to turn into a full-blown pet obsession blog. But I usually write about whatever's on my mind, and right now, my mind is pretty much over-run by this new dog of ours.

I showed you in my last post how this incredibly sweet, mellow, laid-back pooch tore up the wall by the laundry room door when we left him in there overnight. So, we decided he needed to be crated (I can't believe I let the pet store guy talk me out of that the first night -- follow your instincts!!). So, I picked up a crate the next day, and we spent some time during the day getting him used to it. He actually seemed quite comfortable there -- even chose to lay down and rest in there of his own accord.

But at bedtime, he paced in that crate and barked and whined hysterically. After a couple hours, hubby put the crate in the garage, where he continued to bark, but we were able to go to sleep. In the morning, he had torn the pad in the bottom of the crate to pieces.

So I threw that away and cleaned out the crate, and, because we had no other choice, we put him back in there for the hour of time between when hubby had to leave for work and I got home from driving the girls to school.

And here you see the result.

Yes, that's blood where he tried to chew his way out of the crate. He had also managed to move himself, crate and all, a few feet into the room and turn the crate on its side. But when I got him out, he hopped over to wag his tail at me and get a big drink of water, his usual cheerful, contented self.

We should have named this mutt Dr. Jekyll.

After sitting rather stunned for a few minutes and feeling quite discouraged and lost about what to do for this animal, I called a couple vets and got some prescriptions and some advice. Last night we put him in his NEW completely metal crate (no chewing his way out of this one) with a sedative and an Adaptil collar (which emits pheronomes like a nursing mother dog emits).

He barked for about an hour. Hubby put him back in the garage. He barked for another thirty minutes or so . . . and then quiet.

Blessed quiet!

This morning when the youngest got him out of his crate, he was calm and nothing was torn up. Here's hoping this is something of a breakthrough.

Because I don't know if my daughter could take another night of his terrible separation anxiety. He's her dog, and she cried last night listening to him. And I could sympathize. It sent me back to our days with a newborn . . . actually, the first few years, with both girls. I vividly remember sitting outside the door of my crying baby in her crib -- sleep-deprived and crying myself -- and praying, "God, do I go in? Do I stay here? I'm so tired! She's so tired! Five more minutes?  Ten minutes? What do I do? What do I do???"

Such a terrible burden to be responsible for the well-being of a helpless another. I have no illusions that the separation anxiety or bedtime battles with Wheatly are anywhere near over. (And this is why we resisted getting another dog for so long.)

But, as I said, here's hoping this is something of a breakthrough.

Tired. Again.

I haven't talked about my sleep problems for a while.  I haven't needed to.  For you relatively new readers who didn't know I have sleep problems and want the back story, you can get the full story here; start at the bottom.  It's a long saga.

So, January 1st this year, I went cold turkey off my sleep meds and haven't turned back.  After a month or so of fumbling a bit, I seemed to fall into a routine that worked.  I was going to sleep relatively quickly, sleeping pretty solidly it seemed, for a few hours, waking up around 3 or 4 for a little bit, falling back asleep again and up at 6 or 6:30.  Usually a good 6 hours of sleep at least, with little waking that I was aware of during the night.  And functioning quite well during the day.  I praised God every morning.  It was wonderful!  I was thrilled.

Until about a month ago, when it started getting harder to drift off to sleep.  And then I was waking up more during the night.  And yawning more during the day -- big, gaping, break-your-face yawns.  The last straw was when school started and I found myself nearly falling to sleep doing reading with the youngest on the couch.

I'm back where I started. 

I could almost cry, but I just don't have the energy. My last four years have all seemingly revolved around figuring out what the heck is wrong with me and my sleep cycle, and I have apparently made no progress of any kind, other than, perhaps, to eliminate possible answers -- that would be, every possible answer any doctor came up with. 

I don't know what to do.  It seems absolutely pointless to go back to the doctor -- any doctor.  No doctor can fix me.  And it's not like I'm in desperate straits here.  I'm functioning.  I've survived through life for years and years like this and I can keep surviving, even thriving.  It's just that it's absolutely ridiculously stupid that my body is not able to figure out how to do this most basic of simple tasks: fall asleep and stay asleep.

Sorry for the downer post, friends.  As I said quite a while back, I've accepted that this seems to be my personal thorn in the flesh -- the persistent trial that God allows in my life to keep me dependent on Him.  I've accepted it.  That doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.  At least not today.

My Answer? Maybe?

I was all prepared to write about something else this morning until I read a link an FB friend posted. "The Myth of the Eight Hour Sleep". It describes research which seems to indicate that we are wired to sleep for about four hours, be awake for one or two hours, then sleep for another four. A historian has written a book about how this was a widespread pattern of behavior for much of humanity before the advent of artificial lighting that permitted us to do more in the dark. Historical documents refer regularly to the "first sleep" and "second sleep". And doctors expect this is a factor in people who have sleep maintenance insomnia.

Oh. My. Goodness.

If this is all true, this could explain so much for me. My waking up in the middle of the night and having trouble going back to sleep . . . my light, fragmented sleep for the last few hours of the morning . . . hmmm.

This puts a whole new light on my sleep problem. If this is all true, then let's see . . . a normal pattern for me could be go to bed by 10, wake up about 2, do something for an hour or so, back in bed at 3, and up again at 7.

Dare I try that? The thing is, so many other "sleep experts" put so much emphasis on getting a good long 7-8 hour sleep. They tell you things that contradict this. I hate experts. Really! When you have two "experts" on a topic giving you contradictory information, the term itself becomes completely bogus.

It has occurred to me lately that we allow ourselves to be too dependent on "experts". I decided a couple months ago that to fix this sleep problem, I needed to follow my own instincts and the leading of the Spirit. And so far, I think I'm more on the right track.

This bit of info will require some further pondering, however . . .

Fixing my Belief

Another visit to the sleep doctor yesterday -- I'm guessing my last, which kind of makes me sad because he is SUCH a pleasant person to talk to! Anyway, he applauded my successful weaning from the sleep meds and suggested that my main issue now is retraining my body that lying in my bed in the dark is a signal for my brain to shut down and go to sleep. Part of that retraining is getting out of bed when it's clear that my brain is not going to shut off anytime soon and doing something else, something non-stimulating, until I'm convinced I'm really going to go to sleep.

I tried that last night. Kind of. I don't think I realized just how hard that was going to be. We've already discussed here my addiction to comfort . . . my bed is very comfortable at night, even when I'm not sleeping. Oh, it was painful to pull the warm covers off and pull my body upright, to move myself to the love seat and afghan that have been sitting in the cold room unwarmed by my body heat, to pry my eyes open to read something. I did it twice, for about an hour each time. The second time, I was about to fall asleep on the love seat, and of course, once I moved my body into the bed, I couldn't sleep again.

This convinced me that Dr. Summers is right. See, I have spent so much time in my bed not sleeping, just thinking about other things, my brain seems to associate lying in bed in the dark with thinking time, not with sleeping time. I have to change that. But oh, it will not be fun to do it. I fear I won't have the discipline to pull myself out of bed when I'm not sleeping. I LIKE lying in bed in the dark and thinking.

In our small group last night, we talked about how our actions are indicators of our true beliefs. If we really believe that when we pray, we have a private audience with the all-powerful, all-knowing God of the universe who love us intimately and unconditionally, who delights in us, and who desires the best of all things for us . . . honestly, why would we ever get up from our knees? If we live unprayerful lives, it's not a lack of discipline to blame -- it's a lack of belief. Deep down in our heart of hearts, we don't completely believe what we claim to believe. I believe! said the demon-possessed boy's father to Jesus. Help thou my unbelief!

Do I really believe that my brain can be trained to associate the bed in the dark with sleep and nothing else . . . and that training my brain this way will take care of my sleep problem . . . and that getting better sleep will make a significant difference in my waking life? I have to really believe these things, or I won't be able to motivate myself to change my behavior completely and thoroughly. And if I only do it half-heartedly, it won't work.

In other words, I have to believe it will work before it has any hope of working. Like I have to believe that a chair can hold me up before I willfully set my weight on it. And I would have to believe that a tightrope is securely fastened before I could willfully venture to walk out on it. And I have to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God before I can willfully put my life in his hands.

Sometimes the belief has to be solidly in place first before it can be verified by action. This is faith -- believing before we see. I believe. Lord, help thou my unbelief.

Sleeping . . . Naturally

My dog has been having trouble with his hind legs; they just don't work quite right somehow. This makes for an entertaining walking gait. I don't know if you've noticed, but four-legged animals instinctively know to have their left front leg forward with the right hind leg forward, and vice versa, to keep their balance. Tagger has lost this instinct. It's as if he's having to think about which leg to move when, and when you think too much about something that should come naturally to you, you just can't do it at all anymore.

I can relate. These days, I'm trying to remember how to fall asleep.

For those of you who haven't been following my sleep saga, you can hit the "sleep" tag to the right and get caught up. For the rest of you, my latest venture is going cold turkey on my sleep meds. My idea, with my sleep doctor's blessing.

We had kind of gotten to the point, Dr. Summers and I, where there simply was nothing left to try but more meds . . . different meds . . . change the timing of meds . . . and I'm sick of meds. I've been sedating myself to sleep at night on a regular basis for four or five years -- on a semi-regular basis for another nearly ten years before that. I've started to think that the meds were doing as much harm to my sleep/wake cycle as good, if not more.

So, I'm gettin' clean and sober. The first twenty-four hours were awful. Since then, though, I've slept off and on during the night, and surprisingly, I haven't been too terribly tired or cranky during the day.

Here's the thing: I discovered that falling asleep is a challenging task. I mean, you can't will yourself to sleep, like you can will yourself to exercise or put down the cupcake. Sleep just happens. It's a letting go of consciousness -- and it's very difficult to consciously let go of consciousness. Once you're conscious of what you're doing . . . well, you get the idea.

So, I have to figure out what I'm doing that keeps sleep from coming. And I'm getting there, I think. I've stopped using the computer or TV for the hour and a half or so before bed. I do some reading, some praying, memorize some scripture . . . and then listen to some calm music when I get in bed.

But the trick is a mental one. If I TRY to empty my mind and let go of consciousness, it doesn't happen. I'm concentrating on not concentrating on anything, and it doesn't work. I have to have something to think about . . . but it has to be something that doesn't engage my brain too much. (The first night, I started thinking about my spring play for the homeschoolers and ended up writing several scenes in my mind for the next few hours. A productive use of my time, I suppose, but not at all conducive to sleep.)

It's a tricky thing, this letting go of consciousness. But it's something that should come naturally, without thought, like the dog balancing himself on four legs. Heavens, how we mess ourselves up.

needtosleep

A very medical week last week. After Eastin's emergency room episode, she had an EEG on Friday. No results from that yet. And Thursday I drove down to Omaha for yet another follow-up with my sleep doctor.

About a year ago, he suggested that I need to see a psychiatrist in town and try an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety med -- see if messing with my neurotransmitters did anything. I opted instead to spend some time with a holistic health kind of guy trying to get at that problem more naturally, to no avail. So, last spring, my sleep doctor again recommended I see a psychiatrist about anti-depressants.

I did, and the psychiatrist after talking with me a while said, although it's clear I'm "dysthymic" (kind of a low-grade chronic depression -- I've known that for years), I seem to be managing that well on my own and don't need meds. He gave me another type of sleeping pill.

So, following up with the Omaha sleep doctor last week . . . I'm still not sleeping as much as I'd like, and I'm still tired and groggy all day. And he AGAIN wants me to try an anti-depressant -- in fact, this time, he just wrote the prescription himself. Effexor. I'm reading up on it online, and I'm not crazy about the idea.

It occurred to me as I thought through all this over the weekend that I've been taking some kind of sleeping pill (Tylenol PM, Benadryll, Ambien, Trazadone, etc.) on a somewhat regular basis (at least once or twice a week -- now every night) for about 14 years. 14 years!! And it has been during those 14 years that I've learned how to manage my dysthymia better. I'm wondering, if I got off all these sleep meds altogether, if I might be able to figure out how to get some sleep on my own. Maybe the meds are part of the problem.

Thing is, I am quite dependent on the meds now. I don't sleep at all without taking something. Going au naturale is going to be a painful process, for myself and probably for everyone around me whose head I will bite off until my body finally readjusts itself -- if it ever does. I may be totally wrong about this.

Is this worth the battle to try? I don't know. I'm not a fan of the better-living-through-chemistry movement. But I still gotta live . . .

And The Sleep Saga Continues

I know many of you are friends who wonder what's going on with my sleep problems. So, I apologize to those of you who don't care to read about this. But this is a good way to update folks.

So, a couple months or so ago, my newest doctor recommended we test my neurotransmitters -- those are the chemicals in your brain. I find it fascinating that none of the other doctors in the last two years suggested this. The last sleep specialist left me with the recommendation that I find a psychiatrist who would prescribe me an anti-depressant to see if messing with the neurotransmitters would help, but why he didn't suggest testing the levels of the neurotransmitters first, I can't imagine.

Anyway, the test was revealing. My excitatory neurotransmitters (the ones that rev you up, keep you alert) are at elevated levels, and my inhibitory neurotransmitters (the ones that calm you, put you to sleep) are, in his words, "almost nonexistent". Well, that's useful information.

This doc leans toward the natural remedy, which I appreciate, so he recommended I take 5-HTP and Taurine. 5-HTP is an essential amino acid that has to be there for serotonin production, and Taurine apparently does something similar for GABA (GABA and serotonin were two of the inhibitory neurotransmitters I was lowest in).

It's been about a month and a half. I don't think I'm sleeping any better. I still yawn all day -- I even have HAD to lay down for a nap once in a while, which I've usually been able to avoid (naps often mess even more with my night sleep). However . . I'm often more alert and positive during the day -- I'm guessing that's just a result of the extra serotonin. Anyway, the doctor said the next step would be to test my adrenal glands, so I did that test and sent it in earlier this week. The results probably won't get in until I'm already out of town for Christmas.

So, the saga continues. I know a couple other people who are also dealing with health issues that just seem to have no answer. Very frustrating. I know many of you are praying for me, and I really appreciate that. Please pray that, whatever it is that I'm supposed to be learning from this experience -- dependence on God, contentment with all circumstances, perseverance when my well seems completely dry, whatever -- I will learn my lessons well. It would really suck to go through all this and have nothing to show for it in the end.

Doctor Number Six

So, the latest sleep doctor is recommending I find a psychiatrist to try some anti-depressant meds. Even though I don't feel depressed (actually, I've been feeling more content with life lately than I have in a long time), I have a history of depression, and there may still be enough of a chemical imbalance there to disrupt my "sleep architecture".

Not crazy about that idea. I've been on anti-depressants before. I remember my psychiatrist describing the whole process -- sometimes these meds work, sometimes others do, we don't know exactly how or why they work in each different person, so we just play around until we find an effective treatment. It made me think of something my friend Vickie said once: "You know, doctors used to drill holes in people's heads. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't. They never knew why it did or didn't work, so they just kept drilling holes in people's heads." As much as I believe that there are really people who have a chemical imbalance that needs to be corrected with anti-depressant meds, I'm not comfortable with the idea of their playing around with my brain chemistry to see if that's the problem.

I've always wondered, too, how people survived in past centuries before such medications existed. I'm sure many people were just depressed all the time. But I have a hypothesis. I think they were better able to handle a dysthymic state of mind because they didn't have such high expectations of life. They weren't conditioned by society to believe that they should constantly feel fulfilled and joyful and peppy and all. Life is hard, and they knew and accepted that. They probably appreciated the happy times all the more because they saw them as a blessing when they came, rather than feeling cursed when they were absent.

All to say . . . I'm not sure what to do about this recommendation from my latest sleep doctor. A couple other friends have recommended their favorite alternative medicine man. If they have an answer for me, I think I'd prefer that to more meds. On the other hand, their answers may not be as easy as more meds -- and part of being sleep-deprived is being lazy. And I don't want to spend a lot of time and money pursuing possible remedies that are just wacky. *SIGH* What to do . . what to do . .

Miracle Monday

I've mentioned before my Charismatic friend. Her church is having a revival this week, and she invited me to go last night. It was designated as "Miracle Monday", and they were encouraging anyone who wanted prayer for a miracle in their life to come. She knows about my sleep problems . . . did I want to have prayer for that? Well, heck, yeah! Pray, anoint, slap me around, whatever.

So, I went. I did pause a moment during the service to consider the progression of my faith over the years. The first time I heard someone speak in tongues, I kind of freaked. Now, it doesn't really faze me. I have my questions about the whole idea, but I don't put God in a box anymore and tell him how he does and doesn't work in people's lives. This wasn't the kind of worship service I would feel comfortable attending on a regular basis, but it was appropriate for my needs last night.

They prayed over me. They anointed me with oil in the name of the Lord, just like it says in James. I went home tired, although that's typical. And then I slept about like usual, maybe slightly worse. Not that I was expecting instantaneous change -- healing isn't always instantaneous. Actually, I'm not sure I was really expecting healing at all.

And therein lies my problem now, wondering if I "did this wrong" somehow. Here's the thing with me and healing: I absolutely believe that God can heal me of whatever is causing my sleep problems. Absolutely no doubt in my mind. But, God can heal anyone of anything, and he doesn't always do it. So, it's not a question of can he, but will he. And if he doesn't, I assume there's something else he has in mind. As I've said before, I've started to wonder if this isn't my own version of Paul's thorn in the flesh -- something to keep me humbled, to keep me always dependent on him.

Like the two alcoholics who got saved. One of them never wanted a drink again for the rest of his life -- a miracle. The other craved alcohol every hour of every day, but never drank again -- and that's just as much of a miracle. The fact that I've lived with this kind of sleep deprivation for years, apparently, and have not had a major car accident, or abused my children, or destroyed my marriage, that I've been able to continue living life pretty successfully . . . that's definitely a God thing.

I guess I find it a bit presumptuous to expect God to jump at my words and fix me all up just because some evangelist labeled this "Miracle Monday" and I decided to act on that. On the other hand, something keeps nagging at me that if God does have a miracle to do in my life, he may want me to participate in that miracle by believing it's going to happen, without any reason to believe it other than the fact that God says he's Jehovah Rapha, The God Who Heals. SIGH.

I believe, Lord. Help me my unbelief.

Sometimes Life is a Blur....

Well, heavens -- I haven't blogged in over a week. Trying to figure out exactly why . . . I suppose I've been busy, but not more busy than usual, I don't think. I haven't slept well this past week, but again, that's par for the course. I dunno. But here I am. Now what to write about . . . and maybe that's why I haven't blogged in over a week.

Leslie commented the other day that she is constantly daydreaming. Always thinking about something, even while other stuff is going on around her, or even while she's supposedly involved in the stuff going on around here. I know what she means. My mind is constantly wandering, too. And it gets worse when I'm sleepy.

And sometimes it gets so bad, I start kind of missing out on life. Leslie and I have missed three of her orthodontist appointments in the past month -- just completely forgot about them. I did the same with a doctor's appointment of my own last week (although I blame Jim Henry for getting me hyped up on Petra music that day, which made me lose much of my afternoon hunting youtube. Yeah -- yeah, it's all his fault). The girls' birthdays were a week ago, and we still haven't done thank-you notes or calls to the family (Keith thankfully remembered to call home for Mother's Day yesterday, or we'd really be in the doghouse.)

And then I get depressed and frustrated at how behind I seem to be getting in things. Which makes me want to take a break and get away from it all for a little bit. Which gets me even more behind. Yeah, you see where this is going. Dreary, rainy weather today doesn't help. Sigh.

Case in point: I was just interrupted in my writing this to drive Eastin to the busstop, and I couldn't find my car keys. Digging and hunting everywhere. I finally sent Eastin walking -- in the rain, with her violin and all -- because she had to get there, and I didn't know what else to do. I kept looking in the same places over and over again, because I couldn't think of where else to look. After she left, I remembered my purse falling on the floor of the van last night and checked there. Yep, there were my keys, on the floor. Luckily, my neighbor saw my poor girl running through the rain with her bulky violin case and drove her to the next stop for the bus. Poor thing. She needs a better mom.

I've started seriously wondering if this sleep problem is just my personal thorn in the flesh -- a trial that God refuses to take care of so that I stay dependent on him. Ugh. I suppose I could accept that, if it was only me that was affected by it. But it's not fair that my family suffer, too.

Sniffle

I have a cold. Sniffle. This is not unusual for me at Easter time. I remember the year we did the group dance at Hope Church on Easter morning, I was miserable with a cold all weekend. Hard to get into the spirit of things when you're head is stuffed up and foggy.

I took a Zyrtec yesterday wondering if this is actually allergies. In New Jersey, I had to take Zyrtec daily in the spring and twice a week or so through summer and fall. But last year, I didn't need allergy meds all year long. I kind of thought maybe I'm not allergic to anything in Iowa, which would be sweet. The Zyrtec didn't help much yesterday, and this doesn't really feel like allergies -- it feels like a genuine cold.

One of the nice things about illness, however -- I can justify taking medication at night, like Nyquil. Meds that knock me out. Nyquil is wo-o-onderful stuff. I sleep all night, deeply. We've also been on spring break for the last few days, so I haven't had to get up before I felt awake and ready to get up. Put all that together, and I'm sleepin' pretty these days, so to speak.

Sometimes I wonder if there's any better feeling than waking up in the morning, drowsy and comfortable and wanting to fall back asleep again, and knowing that . . you CAN fall back asleep again! That there is nothing standing in the way between you and the thing which, at that moment, is the greatest desire of your heart. Ahhh!! I imagine heaven feeling something like that. Nothing standing in the way between you and the greatest desire of your heart. Of course, hell might be that way, too. It's all a matter of what the greatest desire of your heart is.

Tomorrow we're back to routine. And I have to drive the carpool. Eight more weeks until summer? Sniffle. Maybe I can make it.

Sleep Update

I'm sick of talking about my sleep problems. Consequently, I assume everyone is sick of hearing about them, too. I feel like such a tiresome person relating all this to people over and over again, with no resolution. But some of you are asking, so here's the latest.

My primary doc gave up last fall and recommended me to a neurologist. The neurologist ordered another sleep study done, which happened in December. A couple weeks ago, I saw the neurologist again only to have him tell me that, after looking at the study results, he has no idea what the problem is. I unknowingly woke up an average of 10 times an hour (better than the 25 times an hour during my sleep study a year ago), but he saw no reason why I would be waking up.

So, he referred me to a sleep specialist in Omaha, whom I saw last week. She at least didn't have the same look of confused hopelessness my primary doc and neurologist did. After about an hour of copious note-taking over the details of my life and my problem, she came up with a few hypotheses. She wants me to quit taking Echinacea, as I've been doing daily for several years. She wants me to get my dental work taken care of so the dentist can make me a sleep guard, just in case the teeth-clenching my dentist suspects I do is the issue. She wants me to try to get more aerobic exercise. Yeah, I need to do that anyway.

She also gave me a new medication. One that has no risk of dependency, so I can take it every night -- and she wants me to take it every night. I can take between 25 and 75 mg of the stuff. Last night I took 50mg. I got in bed at about 10 . . . feel asleep sometime after 12:30 . . . woke up off and on until 3:30 . . . stayed awake from then until I had to get out of bed at 6:45. Ridiculous. And this is not a terribly unusual night for me, folks -- at least when I'm off the Ambien.

You see why I'm tired of talking about this? Nothing new. Nothing encouraging. Whine, whine, whine.

Hello 2010!

I wrote in my last post about things that I'm happy happened in 2009. So, as I begin 2010, I'm considering New Year's 2011. Yes, really. I'm thinking, when I write my New Year's post next year, what are the things I want to be able to look back on in 2010 and be happy about?

Number one, I want my sleep problem to be solved. I also want to have lost some weight. That's not a crucial one for me (obviously, or I'd have put some effort into it before now!), but I do weigh more than I like, and I think I will feel better overall if I lose some fat and get more fit.

I want Keith to still enjoy his job. Again, never a given. I want to buy more locally-grown foods, for a variety of reasons. I've really become fond of my organic eggs I found at the farmer's market -- the store-bought ones look downright anemic anymore.

I want Leslie to have leaped her personal hurdles and be babysitting on a regular basis -- and loving it, like I know she will. That would include babysitting her little sister once in a while, which would make a lot of things in my life easier.

I want the girls to be happy and thriving in whatever educational environment they happen to be in by that time. And I want them each to have one or two really close friends. They have friends now, but no real "BFF"s, you know? Those are different -- and those take time.

I want to be heading up a successful, smooth-running drama ministry at Sunnybrook Church that touches people's hearts, uses people's gifts effectively, and doesn't keep me in a constant state of nervous tension. This is an intimidating venture for me, as is the homeschool drama program. Lots of potential for crashing and burning big time, here. But looking back on my posts from last year, a theme that seemed to keep cropping up was the need to step out boldly, to try things big enough that God has a chance to prove himself in them. David commented after one such post, "So what impossible things do you see laying before you?" Perhaps this is it.

I think those are the biggies. But I'd also like to find a good spaghetti sauce recipe. That's one that one of you out there may be able to help me with. Anyone? Anyone?

I Have A Dream

I have a dream.

I have a dream that one day, I'll be able to lie down in my bed and drift into a peaceful slumber within a only few minutes. I have a dream that I'll sleep for a full eight hours without waking once. That in the course of those eight hours, my mind will cycle through all the appropriate sleep cycles and that I will awaken in the morning rested and ready for the day. I HAVE a dream.

I have a dream that I will walk through a day awake and truly alert. That I will have the energy to do my daily tasks without having to forcibly will my body to move when it is sitting still. I have a dream that I will be able to relate to my family without peering through the heavy fog of fatigue that makes me fight irritability on an hourly basis -- a fog that has been a constant in my life for so long, only recently has it occurred to me that maybe nobody else's brain feels like this.

I have a dre-e-eam, bruthahs and sistahs.

I have a dream that I will drive errands on a sunny late afternoon and not worry that the warm air and the late hour will lull my eyes closed and the cars wheels out of the lane I'm driving in. I have a dream of arriving home and sitting on the sofa without thinking about lying down . . just for a minute . . just for . . a minute . .

For years, I could never understand how I could be so tired all the time when I slept so much. So when I had my sleep test done last fall and the doctor told me the results (that I was unknowingly waking up an average of 28 times an hour and rarely if ever getting to stage 3 or 4 level deep sleep), I was fascinated and relieved. THAT explains my tiredness, my forgetfulness, my needing stuff repeated to me, my occasional lack of motivation, my irritability, my constant tiredness, my frequent depressive episodes, my over-sleeping, my little stupid mistakes, my never-ending inexplicable tiredness . . . I'm not a lousy excuse for a human being after all. I'm just seriously sleep-deprived!

Now, if my doctor and I could just figure out how to fix this problem. Because I just am dying to see how different life will be when I'm genuinely awake. Maybe I'm kidding myself -- maybe it won't be that different after all. But I can dream. Maybe the fog will be lifted and people's words will actually register when they're spoken to me, so my live conversations can be as coherent as my email ones. Maybe I'll have the mental wherewithal to hear my teenager's rantings, analyze them, check my own emotions, formulate an appropriate response and execute it all in real time. Maybe I'll have the energy to get my daily work done AND enjoy my family at the same time.

Maybe there's a magic pill somewhere, or a secret technique, something that will free me from this sluggish prison I feel trapped in. That would be so cool. I've had rare moments when I've really felt awake -- it would be great to feel awake for several hours at a time. Awake. Awake and free. Free at last. Free at last . . .

Trust

I'm trying something new for my sleep problems. I did some research on the internet and found out, for one thing, that there's a name for what I have: Periodic Limb Movement Disorder. Someone was in a creative slump when he came up with that one. But I also found some herbal remedies proposed as a solution, which perked my interest. I'm not a big fan of the better-living-through-chemistry movement. I'd really rather not have to stuff my body with chemicals every night to sleep, if it can be avoided.

So, I stopped by a local nutrition place and found something all loaded up with the appropriate herbs and such -- Valerian root, Passionflower, Magnesium, etc. etc. Not sure yet if it's going to work or not.

Someone else had suggested to me that I get one of those whole body detoxes. Said it might flush all the toxins out of my system and make a difference in my sleep. I've read some good things about those -- and I've also read that they're a bunch of baloney. So, I asked about it on Facebook. Some people think they're great; some people think they're baloney.

It's all rather frustrating. I mean, who are you supposed to believe? Really -- about anything? I have the same aggravations every four years during the presidential campaigns. Both sides will pull out their experts and their facts and their evidence for their side of every question. But which experts, facts and evidence are we to actually put our trust in?

I find that I put very little trust in anyone anymore. And I find that very sad. Not that I'm suspicious of people's motives -- I don't think they're all lying to me. But they are as likely to be mistaken as not . . or they may very well be lying to themselves.

Now THAT's a fascinating phenomenon to me. Self-deception. We tell ourselves things that we know are not true, and we believe ourselves! How sick are we?

Leslie said the other day that she wished there was a book out there with the name of every human being in history and God's specific directions for them for their lives. "Gwen Kandt: extra Melatonin, less refined sugar, and stop watching American Idol". That would be handy, I suppose. I tried to explain to her how huge a book that would be, but it occurred to me that just all the instructions for me alone would fill a monstrous tome. Bibliophile that I am, would I really read it? And would I follow directions? I do a pretty lousy job with the ones I have from Him now . . .

Hmph. This isn't a terribly uplifting post, is it? Blame it on the PLMD brain fog. And pray my new Valerian root concoction does the trick. After months -- and perhaps years -- of sleep deprivation, I'm anxious to see what the real me is like when she gets a decent night's sleep.