Lullaby

I love to sleep.

Sleep like a... well, you get it.

I'll take it in any form I can get it. Slumber, long naps, 40 winks... I'm down with all of it.

One of the issues with chemotherapy is that it can do a real number on your sleep patterns. The physical discomfort that comes hand-in-hand with treatments doesn't help, of course, but the effects go beyond that. It can make the sleep far more restless, and therefore less effective. Nightmares or even night terrors aren't uncommon. Sleepwalking can become a regular occurrence.

There are drugs that can help, but most of them have pretty significant side effects, dependency being only one on a long list. The pills can be a short-term solution, but when short term is threatening to unpack its bags and turn into long term, that's where things get dicey.

I've been really blessed (lucky, fortunate, smiled upon by the gods) that insomnia hasn't been an enormous problem for me. Clearly, if you read my last entry, you know that it's been at least an occasional issue. Even with the problem being sporadic, I started noticing that I might be forming an unhealthy relationship with the sleep drugs. So, I'm weaning myself off.

There's another part of this process that's really hit me hard in the past couple of days. I love sleep, and there's a specific reason for that. It takes me away from my life. It takes me away from me having to deal with me.

Well, that's an uncomfortable thought.

I'm not just in love with the physical aspect of sleep. I have embraced a kind of soul-sleep.

When I started into chemo, I began a process of withdrawing. I pulled back from my students, my work friends, my non-work friends, family members, wife, kids. I started the cold, mechanical sequence of isolation.

The last year and a half has been a time of upheaval. I almost lost my marriage. I was distant and judgmental with my kids. Those who know me well, know how much I love them. I wasn't present for them. At all.

I was asleep.

My actions of unconsciousness and withdrawal created a crisis. I was about to lose everything that meant something to me. All of it would be lost.

And... I started to wake back up.

I reengaged with myself, my wife, my kids. The circle of my love started expanding instead of shrinking. I was coming out of what had been pretty much a spiritual coma.

Then I found out that I had cancer. No, scratch that. I found out I had two cancers, and that one of them was more than likely to kill me.

Strangely enough, that wasn't what caused me to go back to sleep. In fact, the news was almost a relief (I think I talked about that in one of my earliest posts), since I'd been experiencing debilitating back pain from one of the masses that was wrapped around my spine. The news, somehow, seemed like it was a part of the awakening process.

Then I started into treatments.

My world shrank to my bedroom. I couldn't leave. I didn't really want to leave. I wanted to cocoon myself in my bed and stay there until it was all over. And my bed was more than happy to have me.

Once more, I took my presence and shrank it. Spiritual tunnel vision. Psychic somnolence. It was comfy. It was cozy. It was oh-so warm and fuzzy.

It was killing me.

Fortunately, I have amazing friends and family who refused to let me drift off into oblivion. My wife encouraged me, making me bone broth (collagen and protein, y'all--good stuff), inviting me to go out with her into our garden to help pick raspberries and strawberries and to tie up the tomato plants as they grew. My kids refused to let me be. My friends kept contacting me, asking me for things.

That love woke me up again.

I still feel like $#!+, y'all. Nothing's changed from my last post. Chemo sucks @$$, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Nothing's different.

But it's all new.

I woke up this morning, got on my gym clothes, grabbed the leash and took our dog for a walk. I came home and did some pain management exercises. I drank my lovely bone broth. I took a shower.

A shower, y'all.

I'm coming alive. I can feel it deep in my bones. I'm waking up.

And it's a beautiful morning.


Next post.