oncall sex for life: Ambien

Showing posts with label Ambien. Show all posts

I got some damn sleep!

Woohoo! I feel so much better. I took an Ambien and a dose of NyQuil before we had dinner, as I was beyond exhausted (yet perversely not sleepy, as is my wont), and it kicked in like a sledgehammer. I was out like a light at 6:30pm and slept until 8:00am this morning. Thank god for some modern pharmaceuticals!

I had the beginnings of a nightmare somewhere in the middle of my sleep, but headed it off before it could get really bad. This woman I was with started getting wrong looking. Her mouth opened too wide and her eyes turned black. I put my back against the wall and aimed this big stick I was carrying at her, just in case, then realized it was a dream.

I screamed as loud and long as I could, and I felt it reverberate through the dream. I slapped myself hard on the cheek and the dream levels fell away instantly. I woke up, and then everything felt all right again, so I snuggled in and went back to sleep.

These last couple of days it has been so foggy! I don't know if it's the same cloud that has been sitting on us for all this time or if it's different ones taking turns, but it was really hard to see last night. Here are some pictures I took. It's not the camera making everything look fuzzy. That was how thick the fog was.

Dragging today

Well, darlings, I think we've learned how many days I can go before Restoril quits working again. The last couple of nights it's been taking longer and longer to kick in, and last night I didn't get to sleep until around 3am, despite taking it at 8:30pm. That is a lot of boring time spent lying in the dark. I slept fitfully until I had to get up at 7:45, but fortunately no nightmares.

I'm going back to Ambien and NyQuil tonight, as I need to get some sleep. I told the doctor about all of this, so we'll see what he said. His original idea was for me to switch between the two anyway, but he'd asked me to continue on Restoril for a while to get some more data on how it worked with me.

I was going to write some more, but I am TIRED. So forget it. I want to go home and sleep. I hope you all have a smashingly successful weekend. Don't get the flu, k?

My superpower? Drug resistance.

Yo, guys. This sucks. I took one Restoril last night to sleep, and it did nothing. This is the 30mg dose, mind you, which is apparently the highest dose they make, and absolutely nothing. The pharmacist and doctor both even warned me that it was a really high dose and I should immediately get in bed when taking it. I took it at 8:30 or 9pm, sometime around there, and then we laid in bed for a while and then turned the lights off and absolutely nothing. The last time I remember looking at the clock it was 3am, and we had to get up at 7:30. I have no hangover feeling today, no side effects at all. It's like I never took the drug.

What. The. Hell.

WHYYYYY? I am displeased. This was supposed to be a Super Sleepy Time Cannon Drug for me, and nothing! I didn't want to take anything else, just in case it proved to have some weird interaction with my system and I accidentally murdered myself or projectile vomited or something, so I had a horrid night. I finally got some sleep after 3am, but it was all broken and terrible, and then we got up. UGH.

I am going to try it one more time tonight, and if it doesn't work tonight then I'm going back to my wonderful mixture of Ambien and NyQuil. At least that works sometimes.

Also, there was a burning bus on the I-5 express lanes this morning (that site is where I found these pictures), so traffic was an absolute nightmare. And the server at work is being fixed, so I can't really do anything useful. I should've just stayed home.

All the white stuff is fire-retardant foam, NOT snow.

Exciting!

I want a cupcake. Or a pumpkin spice latte. Or chocolate. SOMETHING.

WAAAH!

I will get over my complainy-ness soon, but right now I am unhappy and the world must know!

Are y'all sleepy? Hopefully I will be!

Well, I had my doctor appointment yesterday, and I think it was productive. We discussed my various problems and how to best approach them. He is hoping that giving me better sleep will also help the anxiety issues, and maybe it will. To that end, I'll be trying a new sleeping med, Restoril. It's a benzodiazepine, and I'm only supposed to take it a few days at a time. Apparently this is another of those do not take alcohol while you're on this or you'll be SORRY pills, so it's just as well that I'd already quit drinking due to the Lexapro. I was never much of a drinker, so I don't miss it. I've always hated the taste of ethanol. I'd make an awful alcoholic, if it were even possible, which I doubt. How can you get addicted to something you don't even like?

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I'll be switching back and forth between this new med and Ambien, and hopefully a few nights of really good sleep will help me. Last night I tried just Ambien instead of adding Benadryl and NyQuil to the mix as well (I have REAL issues falling asleep), and it was hours before I finally drifted off. This wouldn't be such a problem if I didn't feel so terrible with less than about 8 hours of sleep. 9-10 is prime for me, and I've been known to sleep 15 hours at a stretch (not including surgery, after which of course I was knocked out). Getting too little sleep makes me sick to my stomach and I feel awful all day long. I cry really easily and everything seems horrible and overwhelming.

He also told me that I should feel a bit more free to take the Klonopin he gave me. I've been trying to use it very sparingly, but in retrospect I should probably use it before I've got a knife against my arm, you know? He's got a point. I will try to be a little more okay with taking it here and there when I'm stressed out. It's so hard to tell, though. The anxiety comes in rapid waves, and Klonopin takes a while to work. I'm never sure (except for some exceptional circumstances) when I am justified in taking it. I've never gotten a high off of anything, so that will never be a reason for me taking something. I just want to make sure I'm not wasting it. He gave me 10 pills back in October, and I think I've taken three of them. I split them all into halves, and that seems to work on me. Just knowing I have them is nice, too. Kind of reassuring.

I also got antibiotics for my wonderful lung problem, so hopefully that will stop the stupid wheezing and let me go back to normal. I'm going to get flu and pneumonia shots this afternoon at the pharmacy, along with my sleeping meds. They didn't have the Restoril in yesterday when we dropped by to fill the new scripts, so tonight will be my first test of it. Apparently, like Ambien, it can make you sleepwalk, sleep eat, sleep drive, etc.

It's all very exciting over here.

P.S. It's really damn cold. It was sleeting or something yesterday evening coming home, and there was a nasty mess of icy slush all over the grass this morning. Patrick heroically chiseled my car out of its frozen shell, and I am hoping it doesn't snow over the next few days. I have a lunch date with ma deuxième maman, you stupid weather! You'd better not make me reschedule...

Adventures in Asthma OR How I Ended Up Running Through A Dark Parking Lot in the Pouring Rain at 2AM

Last night we had some excitement, as you may have already deduced from the title of this post.

Earlier in the day, around 4pm, Patrick had insisted on cleaning the shower and tub himself. I'd kept offering to do it, but he gallantly refused me and went ahead. He used a Tilex mold and mildew spray that was supposed to soak into the stuff for a bit and then be rinsed off, along with Comet for the tub.

Unbeknownst to us (because we were stupid and didn't look), that Tilex spray is not supposed to be used by someone with chronic asthma problems, like my darling spouse. The fumes were nasty, as fumes usually are, but he seemed okay afterward when he headed off to his recording session.

As the session progressed, he found himself more and more short of breath. The gig lasted until 10, and he got home about 10:30. He and I had a bite to eat, and then I began getting ready for bed around 11. For me, this includes taking my nightly pills, among which is Ambien.

Around 11:15, Patrick began having real issues with his breathing. Albuterol was not helping, despite taking a LOT if it, and the attack was steadily getting worse. We decided not to wait any longer (these things can kill you if they get bad enough), and threw on some street clothes before heading to the ER.

When we got there, it was fortunately pretty quiet, so we were seen right away. I had dropped Patrick off at the entrance to the ER while I looked for parking, as the tiny lot in front of the entrance was full, mostly with cop cars.

The doctor checked Patrick out, doing a peak flow reading and listening to the wheezing in his lungs, and got him breathing from a nebulizer that administered some medicine into him better than his inhaler could. He used that until it ran dry, and started feeling better. They also gave him some steroid pills, and he has to take a few more of those to ensure it doesn't come back. He's also supposed to go see his doctor about getting on a new maintenance drug for his asthma, because he's having to use his inhaler way too often.

I had a feeling that I'd be having a panic attack after we left the hospital, since that's my usual MO, so I took half a Klonopin, and I'm pleased to report that the only panic attack I had was in a dream last night. So I guess it does work. I tend to hold myself together really well while something traumatic is happening, but then about half an hour later I'll freak out when it dawns on me what exactly just happened. I figured it was better to prevent that before it got started.

After Patrick was given the all clear to go home, we went outside and surveyed the weather with dismay. While we'd been inside, it had begun pouring, and there were big puddles everywhere. Since Patrick couldn't run out to the car, I got him to hold my purse and scarf while I rolled up my pants and made a dash for it. Definitely a surreal experience running through the dark in pounding rain for your car while on Ambien and Klonopin, let me tell you.

I couldn't remember exactly where it was at first, since the entire parking lot basically looks the same (and has bunches of trees here and there blocking your view, along with it being the middle of the night and pouring rain), so I went down one way, stopped, looked around and got my bearings, then took off another way and there it was. Whew.

Anyway, I was fine to drive (surprisingly), so I went back and picked him up at the entrance as soon as I'd fetched the car, and we went home, getting back about 2:30am. I was out basically as soon as my head hit the pillow, and I think he was too. He's got pills to get today and has to see his doctor ASAP about those new meds, so we are still in a flurry around here.

I'm so glad he's okay. It was quite the adventure. Needless to say, he will never be cleaning the shower again. Or at least not unless we find some sort of product that is okay for asthmatics, which seems kind of unlikely...

Musings while waiting for my beloved husband to get home from that damn opera

Yes, again. This gig is heeeeeinously long. Love the cash and the musician street cred, hate the time away from my man.

Every once in a while I come across something that makes me think I should do more to take in a sip of popular culture now and again. So I sip, and I enjoy (or revile), and I imagine this fantasy world in which I'm great at all these stupid social networks, and I have like 80 millionty friends, and of course in these fantasies I'm thin and gorgeous and am the most amazing person ever because YEAH, I'm ME!

And then after I've had my pipedream sip of pop culture, I realize that the effort to maintain something like that would take about forty people working 24/7/365.

With only moi? The odds are not in my favor. <- That dippy sentence right there was for my Hunger Games girls out there, I love ya!

Sorry I can't think of better homages! Or whatever. Tributes! No, too obvious. Shut up! Good idea...

So, right. I guess I have to ration my exposure to this stuff and try to just get the good bits, y'know? Cause lord knows I don't fancy getting a face full of 4chan's latest abomination whenever I feel the need to expand my horizons.

What I believe I'm finally getting at here is that I'm a selective recluse. And I LIKE it! I can just pop out when I feel like it, nab a tender morsel to enjoy, and pop right back in.

This post has probably single-handedly made sure none of you will ever visit me again. I mean, what if I've gone all albino and taken up subterranean emu breeding?! You just never know.

I would like to take a moment and thank Ambien for making this little slap of crazed blogger graffiti possible.

I took it last night to sleep as my back was hurting, and I actually managed to get a few hours pain free this morning before it came burning right back. So I'm gonna try that again and see if it helps. Nothing else has, so why not?

Up next tomorrow: In Which I Get Stuffed In A Very Noisy Tube Wearing Only My Skivvies And Some Ghastly Hospital Couture.

I know you're all just DYING to hear about that...

Pictures as promised

Trying this from new Blogger app. My poor phone is geriatric so this is a stretch. Hopefully it works. In the picture with the leaf, that's my whole forearm and hand. I guess I could've used my upper arm too, but you get the idea. Huge!

And we are now at 850 cranes. Just a few more strands to go. Five on one side and four on the other, I believe.

Ambien is making typing this difficult so I'm gonna go sleep. Love y'all!