Insomnia

I intend to stay up all night tonight. I don't sleep well anyway, and I spent a good portion of the day sleeping poorly in an attempt to recover from a little Saturday night debauchery. It didn't work. I don't know why the body loses its ability to tolerate alcohol as it ages, but I just can't drink anymore. I had two gin and tonics and four beers last night, and I woke up feeling like I had some sort of hemorrhagic fever. Gone are the days when I could toss back highballs like they were little cups of Kool-Aid. I suppose some might say that this is a good thing, but I take it as just another indication that I'm no longer young and brimming with vitality.

I found out last spring that I have an actual sleep disorder. This didn't surprise me as I haven't had a good night's sleep since the early 80's. After finally getting fed up with being tired all the time, I went to a sleep lab where they stuck a bunch of electrodes all over my body and expected to me go to sleep at 10:30 PM. I explained that I hadn't fallen asleep before midnight since I was a kid, but I would try. There's nothing worse than TRYING to go to sleep, but I did manage to drift away shortly before midnight.

During the six hours I was asleep at the lab, I got virtually NO deep sleep. Apparently, I "twitch" when I sleep. The name for this twitching disorder is Periodic Limb Movement Syndrome. (catchy, huh?) I've actually noticed my body doing this every once in a while when I'm drifting off to sleep. It's like I have a very short seizure and it completely disrupts everything. It's always been difficult for me to get to sleep in the first place, and when I twitch it just wakes me up again. So, this is what goes on regularly when I sleep, and why I feel like I've been run over by a truck when I wake up in the morning.

This is beginning to remind me of those long, boring medical stories that funny-smelling old people tell. I'll cut to the chase. I was prescribed a medication to treat this new disorder of mine. There was one problematic side effect of that medication: IT GAVE ME INSOMNIA. Every night I would find it harder and harder to go to sleep, until one night when I really needed to get to sleep I actually stayed up ALL NIGHT. Needless to say, I stopped taking that particular medication. I was prescribed a new drug, which actually helped me fall asleep. The problem with that medication, however, was that I found it difficult to wake up in the morning-- my alarm would go off for an hour before I would actually notice. This kind of side effect is a bit of a problem for those of us who must work for a living. Anyway, I no longer take any medication for my sleep disorder and have developed something of a distrust of the medical establishment. Lately I've been thinking that maybe I just need somebody to sleep with.