Out Last Night

I am a lean. mean sleeping machine. I can pass out on a plane, toddle off on a train, collapse in the car, and even brown out on a boat. I have always been good at sleeping, with whatever noise there was around, whether day or night, summer or winter. Now, with ALS, that skill is largely amplified; these days I am not only able to sleep, I am constantly tired, making it much easier to doze off at almost anytime. In fact there is only one time and place where sleep seems to consistently elude me these days; in my own bed at about 11:30 PM.

It is the oddest thing. I am constantly ready to put my head down, constantly feeling the tug of sleep on my eyelids, constantly fighting for the energy to do the things which life asks of me. Yet at the end of my day, when all is said and done, I go to bed and lay there, hoping for slumber to come to me. It denies me; it avoids my. My brain races, covering all kinds of thoughts, songs stick in my head, plans for a future I will never have become bits of bone I must chew over and again. Insomnia, for someone who is always tired.

It's not that there aren't solutions for this. I have pills. I can enforce sleep. The problem is that these pills work far to well on me. Furthermore these pills are definitely not to be taken with alcohol. So if I have a glass of wine like last night, at about 9:00 PM, I have to wait for at least a couple of hours to get the alcohol out of my system. Any more wine and I just won't take them.

So last night, I had the wine at 9:00 PM. I watched some TV until about 11:30 PM. And off I went to bed. At midnight I realized it was going to be one of those nights. At 1:00 AM, I decided I should take the pill. At 1:30 AM, I actually took one Zopiclone. My mind must have been working overtime because I remember looking at the clock a few minutes after 2:00 AM. After that, nothing until just before noon today.

The home care worker was due at 1:00 PM to stretch me. I had to force myself through the fog remaining from the Zopiclone to get into the shower and to get dressed. Once done, I simply flopped back on the bed until she arrived. We went through my exercises. When complete, she went to tidy the kitchen and I fell asleep. She came back to find me asleep; I awoke and she said asked if I wanted to stay in bed. I said "yes". She went her way and I went back to sleep, finally waking at 4:00 PM.

I don't know if is the Zopiclone or my general level of exhaustion. But that pill sure put me out last night.