Sleep

Sleep:

Anyone that knows me knows that I live for my Shabbos nap.  My weeks are packed and I go, go, go all week long.  However, I do it all knowing that come Shabbos, I will hopefully get a little nap.  Yes, Stephen does not refer to them as “naps” but more like “sleep” since sometimes they can last a long time.  I know that I have a unique sleeping ability.  It is in the Bader genes.  My father is amazing at napping.  In fact the other day when he disappeared the girls said “grandpa is taking his nap” like it was a normal occurrence.

Since diagnosis, sleep has not been my friend.  The first few days, I didn’t sleep at night. I hated going near my bedroom.  I would honestly try and sleep. I would just lay there and toss and turn.  Eventually, I would get up and pace around.  I would go downstairs and sometimes watch bad tv or work on a puzzle.  One night I think I read an entire book and still sleep did not come to me.  I started taking something to help me sleep.  Yes, I would close my eyes and “sleep” but it was still not restful and my eyes felt heavy in the morning.

Once I started Chemotherapy, things started to change for me.  I noticed that I get tired so easily.  I used to run four miles on my treadmill at least three times a week.  Now….I can barely make it up the stairs before I need to sit down and rest.  What have I become? When people ask "how are you feeling?"  I usually say tired but it is a different kind of tired.  It is more of a body fatigue than a tired that a nap would help. Most nights I can fall asleep without the help of medicine. I am not a real big fan of taking medicine unless I have to.  So I try to sleep on my own.  The only problem is once I wake up, I am then up for the day.  The other day Elisheva woke up at 4:00am and proceeded to wake the other children.  That was it for me. I couldn’t get back to sleep even though Stephen got up to deal with the children.  I tried to nap and was almost into the zone when the phone rang and then lawn people came to do their thing.  I miss those days when the alarm would go off and I would turn it off and fall right back asleep.  I miss the days that at any point in the day I could climb into bed and be out in seconds and still have no problems sleeping at night.  For now I will take sleep whenever I get it, and hopefully when all of this is over I’ll go back to my sleeping ways.

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book –Irish Proverb

No day is so bad it can’t be fixed with a nap.—Carrie Snow