Busy and Exhausted

Whew, things have been rather busy in my life of late, and as a result I didn't manage to get a post up yesterday. After I left work yesterday I picked up my son from his summer program, dropped him off at home, and took my daughter to her piano lesson. I was hoping to go for a walk while my daughter was at her piano lesson yesterday evening, but alas, it was not to be.

Looking out my car window.

Now, I'm not going to melt in a little rain (actually it was pretty heavy), but unfortunately the lightening was much too close to risk going for a walk with a lightening rod, er, umbrella.

After the piano lesson, we went back home where the house was in a shambles because my husband (who has the summer off, what, I'm not jealous!) and daughter painted our family room, dining room, and kitchen this week. They finished yesterday, but everything was still covered with drop cloths, so we went out to grab some dinner.

Our next stop was to visit my husband's grandmother. While we were in Ireland, she was going down the stairs, which she does backwards because of her knees, and thought she was at the bottom, but in actuality still had another step to go. So when she stepped back and didn't encounter the floor as she expected to, she tumbled and broke some ribs and her femur, and partially collapsed one of her lungs.

The good news is that she has always been very active, fit, and trim, so she's recovering more quickly than anyone expected. The harder part is that her husband (not my father-in-law's dad), who has never been a very easy man, has terminal cancer and is experiencing some dementia. She has been under so much stress trying to help him, and to make him understand that she's also aging so can't do as much as she used to do. So she isn't moving back in with her husband after this over. He's going to an assisted living facility and she's moving into senior apartments and she'll just visit her husband.

By the time we got done with all of that, I was too tired to get a post written. I've decided that I am chronically exhausted. I sleep through the night about three times per year. On good nights I probably get about six hours of sleep, most nights are probably between four and five hours, and bad nights might be as little as two hours of sleep. I feel like I'm regularly functioning at a reduced capacity, and I never feel very good. One random Thursday night several weeks ago was one of those rare nights where I did manage to sleep all night; and I couldn't hardly believe how good I felt the next day. It really highlighted how poorly I feel the majority of the time.

I've been fighting this sleep issue for over a decade now, and it's getting worse. I don't like to take medication, so I've been trying to do everything behaviorally. At this point, I think I'm stuck in a vicious cycle where I know I won't sleep, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and my body has these bad habits so I can't sleep. The behavioral tricks all work...sometimes, but not reliably every time, or even the majority of the time. It's really about a 50/50 proposition. So I think I've reached the point where I'm going to make an appointment with my doctor and get a prescription for sleeping pills, because this has got to change. I think getting more sleep would help with nearly every aspect of my life. I think it would be easier for me to have a positive attitude, to be patient, and to stick with my eating plan and lose weight. It might also help with the fact that I frequently lose my vocabulary when I'm speaking.

So that's what's been happening with me since I got back from vacation. I'm planning on restarting my weekly progress posts this coming Sunday, and will hopefully have more time and energy to keep the regular posts going.