So, three days in a row must mean that not only am I going to throw my goat into the rodeo for NaBloPoMo, BUT, I’ve actually started early.
The girls were off school today, so we celebrated by driving 20 miles south to my doctor’s office, where I made the following announcement:
“I haven’t slept for more than one or two hours at a time in over a month, and sometimes when I wake up I’m making death claws with my hands.”
We talked for a bit (about Halloween and the weather!), he complimented my blood pressure (90/68!), I told him I take 10,000 steps each day (I did last week because a friend threw down a sparkling gauntlet, but this week not so much), and I walked away with a suggestion (to get my heart rate up to a 7/10 daily) and a bottle of Trazodone. And before you click your tongue and tell me about how terrible Trazodone is, please stop. STOP. First, because that clicking sound makes me so angry, and finally, because I’m impressionable and I don’t want to swallow a pill tonight thinking, “This is the pill that made ArizonaSportsFan24 want to die.” Instead, I will swallow that pill thinking, “This is the non-addictive pill with little to no side effects (except for that weird priapism thing) that will get me back on the road to wellness.” And in a few weeks I’ll feel great and will stop the pills. The End.
After the appointment, I took the girls to the mall because I was jonesing for some quick and easy coffee, Harper felt that she deserved hot chocolate, and Meredith was having visions of cinnamon sugar pretzel nuggets. Plus, we needed tights, and I wanted to find a pair of cheap and casual black boots. (Success. $12.)
In approximately 10 minutes we’ll be driving to the store for avocados, spinach, French bread, and bananas. And then I suppose I should start thinking about cutting a hole or four into a pumpkin. I’ve never been a fan of Halloween, mainly because hell is people coming to my door, regardless of their age. (Last year we put a cauldron full of candy outside with a sign that said, “Please take one or two.” Less than ten minutes later, the cauldron was empty because someone clearly couldn’t read.) Now that we’re in a subdivision with 34,239 kids, I have no idea what to expect.
This photo was taken exactly seven years ago.
Meredith was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and Harper was Murray Wiggle.
This year, Meredith will be Hazel Grace Lancaster from The Fault in Our Stars, and Harper will be Glimmer, the career tribute from District One in the Hunger Games.
And here we go. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
I’m surprised at how much sadness overcame me when I saw that you had no link to those cheap and casual black boots, particularly since I had to buy some at Target the other evening, and they were $45 (without taxes!). I hardly *ever* pay that much for shoes.
Also, I owe you an e-mail, I think. And I’m even more sad that I’m not the friend who threw down the Fitbit gauntlet…I’m definitely no competition for you. One Saturday, I think I walked like 900 steps.
Lastly, why aren’t we neighbors?! We could avoid each other in ways only introverts would understand, except to have coffee and gossip.
Angie, trazodone literally became my life-saving drug 16 years ago. Due to various life stresses at that time in my life, I literally did not sleep one wink of a minute for 3 weeks (yes, weeks…not nights…weeks). I had always been a bit of an insomniac, and didn’t realize that normal people actually slept through the night. I had been sleeping for 45 minutes – 1.5 hours, then awake for over an hour, then repeat the cycle throughout the night. I started doing that when I was 8 or 9-years-old, which is when I hit puberty.
So back to the 3 weeks of no sleep. Needless to say, I had a bit of a breakdown. I had self medicated for sleep for a few years with Benedryl, working my way up to taking 150mg each night, and that wasn’t working at all anymore. The night of that breakdown I was taken to the ER, and the doctor prescribed trazodone. That one 50mg pill gave me 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, with no foggy feeling in the morning. Trazodone is not addicting…but you can build up a tolerance to it. At one point, I was taking 400mg each night. A new doc who knew more about fibromyalgia (which is technically a sleep disorder), lowered my trazodone dosage to 150mg and added in amitryptilene. Those 2 drugs, along with Xanax are what now gets me to…and more importantly…keeps me asleep.
You seem to be sensitive to medications, and as far as I know, the lowest dosage of trazodone is a 50mg tablet. My suggestion is to take half of that initially. Most folks in my life that have taken trazodone, 50mg knocks them out for a good 10-12 hours.
Sweet dreams, my friend!
Is it to weird to say. I love you. Hope you get some good sleep. PS. I totally ignore Halloween. I hate people knocking at my door, unless it is open, and it is never open on Halloween.
I cannot imagine not being able to sleep more than one to two hours at a time. Do what you need to get those zzzzzs. I’ll be rooting for you.
I apologize for the double negative in that first sentence up there. It’s making me twitch.
I’ve fallen behind rather badly in my commenting here, but knowing that No Mo Blah Po (and, since someone else asked me last year, yes, I DO know that’s not how it’s spelled — it’s just my quirky little take on the whole thing :-) ) is upon us, figured I had better begin flexing my fingers in earnest around here. Kudos to you on the hearing test, the weight loss, the new washer (I love my top loader) and any & all other kudo-able things you’ve mentioned since the last time I visited. Hope to hear that you survived Halloween with your sanity intact. Our younger son lives in one of those high-trade neighborhoods. Weather factors this year caused a sharp drop-off in their numbers…only 393 eager little goblins at the door. Aieee~!
Wow, I really hope you can skate by without the priapism side effect.
My doc just gave me a scrip for Ativan for my recent premenopausal insomnia, but after consulting my retired nurse mother, I’m pretty freaked out about taking it. Even though there’s no threat of priapism.
Love drugs…er MEDICINE.
Halloween, not so much.
You? Bunches.
I took Trazodone back in the dim dark days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and it was prescribed as an anti-depressant. The only unwanted side effect was a 10-pound weight gain and a tendency to slight dizziness when I stood up, both highly preferable to depression and/or sleep in 2-hour increments. Good luck!