The post title is either the title or a lyric from a Frank Sinatra song that is swirling around in my head. It is 5:30 am and my mom has hardly slept. These nights are happening more often. I'm going to have to call the doctor to ask her if we should increase my mom's meds or hire someone to keep her comfortable at night. Comfortable means getting her drinks or pain medicine and reassuring her that she is safe. She sees things that are threatening such as strange men,groups of people having a party & 5 minutes ago she became very frightened because there is a bear in the room. I try to reassure her that we are alone, that this is her house, the doors are locked, that she must have had a bad dream or that the things she sees are in her brain. I have to be careful with how I talk about the last thing though. She is very aware that things are going wrong with her thinking. She says see is "cracking up" "going nuts" or that she needs a psychiatrist. She is scared of sleep cause she's afraid of not waking up so she talks & talks to herself trying to keep herself awake. When she panics she calls my name until I wake up & go to her room. Thank goodness for the 3 hour nap I had yesterday while a caregiver was here because nether my mom nor I had much sleep tonight.
Both of us need more sleep for the obvious & not so obvious reasons. One of my doctors ( how many do I have now? 10 I think) said a person needs 4 consecutive hours of sleep out of the goal of 7-8 hours a night. The 4 hours is to restore many brain functions & to burn fat. I haven't had more than 3 or 3 1/2 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a long time. Another doctor said " a sleepy brain is a hungry brain" consequently the 10 extra pounds that I have carried around the last few months.
I wish the support groups I tried were more helpful. I'd rather stay at home and nap. Oh and the talking stick annoyed me as well as the many rules. If I want to be bossed around, again I'd rather be at home being told what to do & how to do it by my mom.
I have proof read this but as sleepy as I am I probably made errors. Please understand.
I couldn't find my humor button for this post. Usually I try to channel my heroine Nora Ephron but not tonight.
Yawn.....
