Insomnia

I have had insomnia as far back as I can remember.  

I remember in eighth grade, and in high school, lying awake in bed most of the night.  I listened to the radio.  Dr. Ruth had a show at midnight or something like that, and I learned all kinds of interesting things from her and her callers.  Then, about three in the morning, the radio station that was most popular with all the kids my age had a show called “The All Night Barnyard.”  It was funny and off-beat.  I remember they played a lot of Ray Stevens songs.

Anyway, I’ve had insomnia since then.  And I still have it.  I have trouble going to sleep and I wake up frequently during the night.  Ten or 12 years ago, I had a sleep study done.  It found I woke up 11.4 times per hour.  But I did not have sleep apnea and I was getting plenty of oxygen all night, so the doctor that evaluated the sleep study was not concerned.  But think about it.  If you wake up every five minutes all night long, do you think you are going to be well-rested and refreshed in the morning?  Well, I’m not.

I am hoping that my service dog will help me sleep.  The dog will be trained to wake me up if I have nightmares, and he will be trained to turn on the lights if I wake up from a nightmare.  But I’m hoping his presence will help me sleep.  I’m hoping he will make me feel safer.  I hope he likes to sleep with me.  I would love to have him in my bed, or on the couch with me.  I often sleep on the couch since I sleep so poorly and am up so late.  I’m thinking the couch may be a bit crowded with me and a golden retriever on it, but I once spent some time with a friend at her home and she had a greyhound and he slept on the couch with her.  I thought it was sweet.

I’m hoping his warmth, and the sound of his breathing, will comfort me and help me sleep.  And I’m hoping I will feel safe and that will make it easier to fall asleep.  I used to have a cat named Eileen who would sleep right beside me, her head on my shoulder, purring away.  The sound was so soothing to me.  I have three cats now, but they rarely sleep with me.  None of them are as snuggly as Eileen was.  But I am hoping a dog will be snuggly.  Dogs are not independent like cats are.  I hope he wants to sleep with me.

In the meantime, though, I have got to get some rest.  I recently started taking melatonin, 3 mg, and am hoping that will help.  I’ve tried a number of medications for sleep but I don’t like the drugged feeling I get before I fall asleep when I take them.  I’m still awake but feel so drugged I can’t sit up, can’t do anything, can’t think.  And it scares me.  I feel panicky and I try to fight it.  And sometimes I stay awake and then the medication eventually wears off and I’m still awake.  Other times I do fall asleep, but that feeling is so upsetting to me that I don’t want to take the medication.  I also hate the hung over feeling I get the next morning.

So I’m trying the melatonin.  I’m not getting that horrible drugged feeling before I go to sleep with it.  I don’t feel hung over in the morning, either, although I have been very sleepy the last couple days.  I think that might just be because I’ve been surviving on about four hours of sleep per night for several weeks, though, not because of the melatonin.

Those of you that have dogs, do they sleep with you?  Do they hog the bed?  Eileen used to hog my pillow.  She also used to drool when she was really relaxed.  I know cats don’t usually drool, but she sure did.  Sometimes she would be sleeping with her head on my shoulder, purring away, and kitty slobber would be running down my shoulder, down my arm.  Yuck.  But I loved her.  I didn’t even mind the slobber, really. 

Dogs tend to slobber more than cats, though, right?  And a golden retriever is a lot bigger than a cat.  I hope my dog doesn’t slobber too much.  Even if he does, though, I want him to sleep with me.