More on Sleep

I thought that I was winning the sleep problem but yet again I'm sat here at 2:30am, unable to sleep though desperately tired. Last Sunday night was hell, Monday I was exhausted enough to sleep through a world war, Tuesday was again horrible. Wednesday was a little better and since Thursday I've been doing OK - until now, that is.


I talked to our Homeopath on Monday and she suggested stopping some medication that I'd been taking for weeks to get rid of lingering flu symptoms. When I thought about it, this made sense - my sleep problems started shortly after starting this medication. She was fairly sure that my sleep problem was an over effect and thought that within 3 days or so, once the medication was out of my system, I would lose the sleep problem. It seems pretty much that that is what happened.


However another component of the problem is stress, I guess. I've mentioned before that I've been experiencing tension in my chest and that I find that my heart also seems to beat too hard on these occasions (not too fast, but thumps in my chest). The solution to this is exercise. For instance, last week I went on the cross trainer every other day for 30 mins, which had the effect of greatly decreasing the tension in my chest.


It's this problem that's keeping me awake tonight. I guess that this is my fault. Usually I'll do a  30 - 40km trip on my mountain bike in the weekend. I'd planned to take part in an organised ride today but after 2.5km I got a flat tyre and ended up missing the ride. I was so fed up that when I got home, without thinking, I didn't do anything to fill in the gap and so I missed out on my weekend exercise. Earlier this evening I noticed, without really noticing, that I could feel my heart beating. But it was only when I went to bed that I really noticed that it was thumping quite hard. I started to worry then, which only made the situation worse and guess what? Here I am.


I don't know what to do about it now. The problem is that the whole cycle from last week could start to repeat itself. So I need to get on the cross trainer first thing in the morning. But at this rate I'll be exhausted in the morning. 


I used to think that I could absorb stress fairly easily but since Kay became sick I seem to be pretty stress intolerant. Or rather, I think that most of my capacity to absorb stress has been taken up by the loss of Kay and I have very little room left to deal with normal things.


There have been lots of tears in our house in the last few days. Preparations for christmas are bringing our pain to the fore. I bumped into the last photos of Kay yesterday and that has really been hard to take, although I know that like many things, they have to be faced. Marion said today that she still has the feeling that Kay will come running in the door any second and that's a feeling that I share too. Again she's incredibly present by her absence. There's a Kay-shaped hole in my life that is almost tangible. 


I can't find any enthusiasm for christmas, it seems so meaningless. Thinking about gifts for people, it supposedly being a happy time of the year, etc, when my heart feels so empty. The only point of it for me is to make it nice for Lauren and Nattie and to enjoy some good company. I could easily leave the tree, the lights and all the other symbols of something I just don't feel. 


But there's one big highlight in the coming days: Lauren comes home on Wednesday. She was last home at the beginning of September, which seems like an age ago. I can't wait to see her. So I guess that for now I'll try to focus on that and see if I can eventually get some sleep.