Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Insomnia, how I hate it

Lately I have been having trouble with insomnia. I hate taking Tylenol PM because it causes me to have a real hang over feeling in the morning. So after a few nights of sporadic sleep I decided to start digging through my drawer of drugs.

Now those who know me well will remember my philosophy about raising kids. When you travel or when the kids were just plain ornery or sick I used the wisdom of "When in doubt, drug them out." Meaning a good dose of Benadryl or back then paragoric could solve many problems. I know, don't report me. The children survived. Yet on the other hand, I never used band-aids because I didn't want wimpy children and band-aids were expensive so all open bloody issues were solved with a wet paper towel.

Now back to my post, I was digging through my drawer of narcotics obtained from adult children who had had surgery or teeth pulled etc and I would get the narcs filled and then rarely would let them have any substituting it for tylenol.... and no I never took the pills either.
When low and behold I found a prescription of Ambien from Trent's finger surgery. My problem was solved. I would take 1/2 of an ambien. I took it one night and had a wonderful sleep (of course knowing ambien is habit forming) I took another 1/2 on another night. Great nights sleep. And then came Monday night.

Monday at work was horrible. I had to appear in court on Tuesday with a resident and the family so I thought I would take a whole Ambien and go to bed early. I did. Wonderful!!! great night's sleep. Got to the court room and the resident's daughter started talking about our conversation of the night before. What conversation I asked her. She looked at me oddly told me the one we had on the phone at 11:00 PM. I didn't have a conversation with you. Yes, I did. She showed me the phone log. WOW... I had NO recollection of that phone call. Thankfully, I was nice on the phone call. That was a scary feeling!!

I figure I could take Ambien 5 mg and have a colonoscopy or anything else and be fine. who needs Versed for procedures or surgery when you can take Ambien and wake up refreshed.

So last night, I was lying in bed wide awake and noticed a florescent square on my ceiling. don't laugh. There is a florescent square on my bedroom ceiling. I asked shannon this morning why the kids painted a florescent square on my ceiling and she said they did not. I lay awake all night looking at the square..... could I have painted it while on the Ambien????

Anyway, last night after tossing and turning for HOURS... I decided to count my blessings instead of sheep (yes, I have been listening to Christmas music) in order to help me fall asleep.
I remember starting with Devin and getting all the way to Trent. Sorry Brett and Whitney but now there is Amanda and Tom to stick in there but it doesn't mean I am not thankful for you.

Good thing I have so many kids..... and PS... for those who use Ambien turn off your phone and hide the florescent paint.

5 comments:

Kim-the-girl said...

I think its interesting that you have florescent paint just lying around to be used while on Ambien. Thanks for the laugh. Hope the sleep gets better!

RazakFamily said...

NOW I know where my mom got the "wet-paper towel" philosophy!!! See, our Navi J thinks that Band-Aids are freakin' awesome. I am an anti-sleep aid girl, and thanks to your story...I am even MORE now!!
And, since my "mom" said it's okay - I'm gonna start druggin' up my kids when they're onery!!!
Next time you're up in the middle of the night, you should give me a call...we don't sleep much in this house either :)

Whitney Royer said...

Thanks Mom. Whatever happened to blood?

G'pa and G'ma Woody said...

Oh, your sense of humor is totally intact! I have some restless nights, and Scott suggested Benedryl. Well, one is TOO MUCH for me. So a couple of months later I took half. That was ok. Fortunately, nobody called me at 11:00 pm and the only fluorescent paint was in a marker. Pleasant dreams! Jane

Jeni said...

Crazy thing...the night I read this post..I couldn't sleep! So I tried the blessing thing! Thanks for the tip :)
You make me laugh.