It's about 4 a.m. I've been up since 2. Sigh. Things are not going well with the sleep side of treatment. Since I've started at the Fibro and Fatigue Center, I've been adding and changing medications and supplements. It feels like my brain is re-ordering itself around them. It's a bit disconcerting but not really so bad. My body had been hanging in but since I added melatonin two nights ago, sleep has been strange - too many dreams and periods of waking up. Yesterday morning was a struggle to get out of bed. This morning was a struggle to sleep. Which would be OK but I'm so tired...
Anyway, I just read a newsletter from Debbie Ford who talked about a lecture she attended given by Dean Ornish. He spelled out illness and wellness on the board and then highlighted them - "I"llness and "We"llness.
I admit it's kind of cheesy but the truth of it struck home with me. Since I've become ill, so much of my life has been inward "me" focused. I hate it but sometimes I just can't summon up the energy to care about what's happening outside of my little fibro directed world. Old Maslow, of hierarchy of needs fame, was no dummy when he said that the survival stuff had to be taken care of before one could look beyond those basics.
I've been thinking about success markers - how I'll judge if my treatment plan is a success. Once I get beyond eliminating pain and getting restorative sleep, I think that consistently staying at the "we" level of that pyramid would mean that I've moved beyond illness.
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I don't want to forget to mention some of the upsides of not being able to sleep. The pre-dawn world is quiet. Traffic is hushed and there's a chorus of crickets outside my window. The air coming in smells soft with the scent of dew on grass that goes away once the sun comes up. It's lovely. So much so that I might not even mention that fact that at 4 p.m. I'm going to be semi-comatose.
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