One of the reasons I don't sleep well even when I'm deep in the heart of Anxiety and air-borne allergens are low and I'm not trying to finish a really good book is my parts.
My body is, apparently, made up of several completely separate, completely selfish, completely whiny parts each of which has completely different requirements for a restful sleep. Seriously, they're like a bunch of indignant people expressing strong yet conflicting opinions in an Aesop fable. Or a car full of bickering siblings.
My head and neck always preferred to be propped up on several pillows. Or maybe it was just because my sinuses insisted. Whatever, I can only sleep with one thin pillow now because I have metal plates in my neck because gunk from between the vertebrae was pushing out and cornering nerves like creepy men outside the women's restroom. Probably from sleeping with lots of pillows (the pushy neck gunk not the creeps).
Being mostly flat really doesn't work for my sinuses, so I sleep on my side. Which I normally did anyway before the anterior discectomy (neck surgery with metal plates).
But I can't lie on my right side for at least a couple of hours because for some reason I choke on whatever mucus is in my sinuses and lungs. I always have at least some mucus in my sinuses and lungs, so I start out lying on my left side.
My lower back and hips object. I'm too curvy. Or the wrong curvy. Or possibly even not curvy enough (in this one instance only). So I sleep on my left side with one thing pillow supporting my cyborg neck just so and a very large, thick pillow (actually a cushion from the old couch) between my legs.
My left hand is beside my head on the pillow, artfully draped back like a tragic heroine on a fainting couch. This is to help gently stretch the wrist and forearm tendons because I've had problems with tennis elbow even tho I haven't played it since I was forced to in high school PE.
(Note: I was surprisingly good at it because:
my brother was already an avid tennis player by his junior high years and I had to spend many evenings dodging his Andre Agassi-wannabe power serves because he didn't have anyone else to play with, and
the other girls were mostly focused on not sweating too much whereas I simply wanted to keep the ball on the other side of the net so I didn't have to chase it because I did more than enough of that after school (see above), so I returned everything sent my way and they didn't run much to sling anything back to me. I couldn't serve worth a damn tho.
My right arm/hand is usually someplace odd behind me because the wee demon finds the curve of my waist absolutely the bestest sleeping spot and just climbs up and makes herself quite at home.
Eventually (maybe thirty minutes, maybe three hours) my left hip complains a lot because it is supporting maybe 93% of my weight and I admit that is a lot to ask. So I dislodge the cat, and flip over, and pull my nightgown or pjs around so they're not twisted in a weird bunch waiting to strangle me in my sleep, and drag the cushion over, and arrange my lower limbs, and arrange the blanket, and arrange the pillow, and settle my hair so it doesn't strangle me in my sleep, and let my right wrist play tragic heroine.
And realize I moved enough that I woke up my bladder. So I pee and go back to bed and maybe remember to lie on my right side. I probably have to get the fitted sheet back on because all of that arranging and settling pulls off at least one corner.
If not, my left hip will wait until I'm just drifting on and then scream bloody murder.
If I do get back into bed and arranged and draped and everything on my right side, it's maybe a fifty-fifty chance that I will get a tickle in my throat and cough a bit then cough a lot then cough whike choking and trying to breathe. And my sinuses are absolutely useless a breathing emergency. They freeze up then finally respond with all sorts of panicked nonsense like adults in a Lemony Snickett book. Very keen on exhaling; absolute rubbish on the inhale.
Then I need to unwrap and suck on a hard candy (yes, I have a small pot of granny candies on my beside table) and blow as much excess mucus (and by now there is lot of it) while coughing and choking.
Have you ever coughed and sneezed at the same time? You think your brain is going to explode. Or implode. Or explode and implode. You think, "This is it. This is how the world ends -- a reverse Big Bang."
Sucking and sneezing and coughing and choking all at the same time is like that times a million. The human body just isn't built to do all of that at once. It's the equivalent of putting your car into gear -- all of the gears -- at the same time.
My feet love it when I like in my back with both of them enthroned on the cushion. I don't blame them, but it just doesn't work for most of the rest of me.
Once I can kinda breathe again -- at least one inhale for every three or four exhales -- then it's back on the left side for at least another hour. The left hip immediately complains but I really don't have sympathy for it what with the almost dying.
I probably successfully switch to my right side sometime after 3:30 am (using a very broad definition of "success"). I'll need to pee again sometime 4:30-5:30. A sound or light or maybe my bladder will wake me up about 6:30. The alarm rings at 7:30 unless I've already turned it off and gotten up.
Then there's the whole hot-cold debate I have with myself. That's another full post. Because I'm hot. Burning up. Touch my skin and it feels like I just came in from the beach. Yet I'm also shivering-under-the-heavy-duvet cold. One foot is especially hot; one shoulder is especially cold.
Usually the cat stalks off in a huff during my first re-situation, but sometimes she comes back to at least sleep near me if not on me. I usually end up kicking her in the night when she does.
I love sleep. With all of my heart. I truly do. I just think that, maybe, it's not that into me.
p.s. I'm at home. Panic attack at work, so I left. Mental health day.
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