It is a late blog entry today; it happens rarely and this is one of the rare days. Yesterday we, my Mom and Ray, myself, and a whole group of friends, drove up to Edmonton to see my brother Jim perform in a presentation by the Edmonton Musical Theatre Guild. It was a great performance with excellent songs and performers.
Instead of driving the three hours to Edmonton, seeing the show and driving back, we all stayed in Edmonton at a hotel downtown. After the show, we got together for drinks and snacks. Mom and Ray, and Cheryl went to bed at around midnight. Then me and the boys got to whooping it up in David's room. My brother Peter had left a bottle of Glenmorangie Scotch when he stayed here a couple of weeks back, so I took that with us. We opened it. We drank it. We stayed up far to late, talking about life, sex, and the whole damned thing.
I finally wobbled my way back to the room I was sharing with Cheryl, sliding into my bed with all the quiet of a drunken reveler, something I was by then. Needless to say, Cheryl woke up. We apparently chatted for a bit before I finally fell asleep. That's when the trouble began.
Lately I have been having trouble with urinating at night. I wake up needing to go, can't go, go back to sleep and wake up again a bit later and try to go again. After several attempts things usually work out. Last night was more challenging; it happened a lot and it got messy. Staying in a hotel room with my jug in my backpack on the back of my wheelchair, with my wheelchair at the foot of my bed meant that getting up was a major activity at night. Once again Cheryl woke up. Once again she got up to help me, again, and then again later.
It was not a restful night. In fact it was a bad night in terms of sleeping. I managed to get about five hours in total, split across about seven hours of the night. We were up at 9:00 AM, or at least I was. Cheryl got up earlier so she could shower and dress. It takes me quite some time to get up, to get dressed, to get going. So it was a bit after 10:00 AM by the time I was ready to go to breakfast with the gang. Then there was the three hour drive back from Edmonton to Calgary. I'm tired.
While my sleeping time may have been short, everything before going to bed was fun. It's worth being tired to have some fun now and again, especially with family and friends. In spite of my nighttime interruptions, I will do this again.
Does ALS in of itself affect one's ability to sleep through the night without having to get up and urinate? Or is this something else that is just made exponentially more difficult because of the ALS?
ReplyDeleteFor my disability, I try to be done drinking liquids at least 2 hours before bed time.
Im also tempted to try inhaled/vaporized alcohol. I've heard there is zero hang-over effect and no liquids to make one have to use the restroom.
I think it is a combination of things. ALS itself is not supposed to impact sleep, but I hear from a lot of PALS about sleeplessness. The urination thing is most likely something to do with getting older, but the difficulty of peeing into a jug, the odd body position and constricting clothing all contribute to the problem. Then there is the issue of having to go and taking too long to get the jug ready. It happens, especially when I am tired.
DeleteAs to alcohol, I don't really get hangovers unless I go waaaaay overboard.