Exhaustion: Thy Name Is Mine

I’ve been thinking a lot about sleep recently; mostly because it is the one thing that cancer stole from me that I refuse to give up fighting to get back.  The meds I must take to help keep the cancer from returning also disrupt hormones which in turn, disrupts sleeping patterns.  I miss a certain type of sleeping, the deep, dreamy, warm under-the-covers variety that calls for strong coffee.  The late morning, weekend in bed watching cartoons and reading the sports section type of sleep.  I was good at it too, a real pro.  In fact, I am still very much annoyed that it took me until adulthood to figure out that my dad was never jet lagged for weeks on end from all his business travels, he just liked to sleep a lot. Still does.  They say seniors don’t sleep nearly as much as younger adults but in my family that simply is not true.  My dad can drop off any where, any time and has been doing so since he was in his 20s.  In his 80s, he still sleeps upwards of 12 to 14 hours a day.  Impressive, I know.

The only other person who misses sleep as much as me has got to be my daughter, who is a new mom.  Beloved Baby CJ made this lack of sleep all that much more difficult for my daughter by recently declaring that she was definitely a one nap a day baby, instead of a two nap a day baby like her tiny, pampered peers.  Discussions are on-going.  The baby is not budging on this issue I’m afraid but we continue to talk about it a lot, the baby and I.  She also thinks that night time is for partying and playing, not settling down for beddy-bye.  She gives me dirty looks when I put on the Sprout channel and the Good Night Show which is all designed to get babies and little kids to settle down and go to sleep.  Claudia may only be 10 months old but she knows a set up when she sees it. 

Since I am the only person who regularly watches the baby when my daughter and son are working nights — upwards of five nights a week here, yes, yes, I am a saint blah, blah, blah — Claudia and I have fallen into the habit of sprightly negotiations on a nightly basis.  Come on baby, Nana works all day and she needs a break.  That baby is going to make one amazing lawyer when she grows up.  I would shamelessly try bribes or even blackmail but Baby CJ has made it clear that she only wants a real live unicorn and I believe while one can bid for the smaller breeds on EBay, the baby wants one of  those 10-footers; the wild variety that can only be found in far-flung places like Bolivia.  And of course, everyone knows you cannot legally import wild unicorns from Bolivia, think of the paperwork and all those customs agents asking questions at the airport.

Sigh.

So, we continue to negotiate this whole sleep thing, Claudia wanting none of it and me never getting close to enough.  I am sure there is some deep-seated irony to all of this, but frankly, I’m just too darn tired to figure it out.  

When people think of vacations or even retirement, they talk longingly of travel, hobbies, freedom.  Me, I daydream of sleep.  Real, soft, deep, relaxing, get-up-whenever-I-darn-well-feel-like-it sleep.  

When I visit my oncologist, the crackerjack nurses who take all my vitals always ask, how is the fatigue?  How are you sleeping?  Same questions, each and every time.  I should bring them some flash cards because my answers are always the same.  I manage the fatigue like an athlete in training, budgeting my energy very carefully for the tasks that I know I must face each day.  And sleep?  Well, it ain’t what it used to be, that’s for sure.  Invariably, the doctors offer me sleep aids but I’ve seen way too many cancer survivors overly dependent on meds, seriously additive meds in fact, so I choose not to go down that path.  Instead, I have come to look at this whole lack of sleep situation like being permanently jet-lagged; a condition I’ve long been intimately acquainted with due to my career choices.  You can’t fly to Asia and Europe numerous times a year and not learn how to manage jet lag or you will lose your ever-lovin’ mind.  On that score, dad taught me well.  My dad believes that if you don’t sleep, no matter what, on the third night your body will do the work for you.  I tell this to my BFF all the time because she has had sleep issues for decades now.  My ability to snooze amazes her even now.  She wishes she had my knack for conjuring up Zs while I feel I’ve been demoted to rank amateur.  Like a seasoned hockey pro well past his prime, the will is still there but not the skill; the body betrays.  

So, tonight I will go home, have yet another five to six hour long negotiation with a tiny, determined little person who won’t budge an inch and close her eyes until her parents show up and then I’ll face plant, collapsing wearily into bed once she goes home with her sleep-deprived parents.  And as I drift off, I’ll know that the battle for deep, abiding slumber, despite the fatigue, is just beginning.