Rise and Shine

I was going to get up at 7:30 AM today because I have to get my friend up for class at 8:30 and I want to make his coffee first, but I was woken up by the garbage truck and the subsequent woo woo by one of the dogs who was also disturbed at 6:10 (I am in the front of the house with the window open). Yesterday I got up at 5:30 AM. Most of the time that I've been off, I've gotten up sometime between 6 AM and 7:30 AM, so not really sleeping in, but I need to get used to being more on the 6 AM side of that. I usually try to get to work between 7:30 and 7:45, as I clock in at 8 AM, and I have a bus I take from the stadium to the medical centre. I go back to work in 13 days. So even though the alarm was set for 7:30 today, I think from now on I'm going to set it earlier on weekdays.

Of course, yesterday I got up earlier, but about 10 AM, I was so sleepy, and I'd been so productive, I went back to sleep for an hour and a half. I won't be able to do that at all, so I'll have to resist doing that, too. Besides, that goes beyond a nap. That's a sleep. 😊

Today I have to stay up. I have PT at 2 PM. I want to do a lot of reading and studying. I may or may not have to go to one of the pharmacies we use--I have to call once they open. I do need to put some laundry away, and maybe do some, or at least get some of that out of the way this weekend. I'm keeping up on my room, and I need to see about moving back into my normal weekend chores. I also want to finish up the game notes from the last time we played. Now that it's not sweltering in the house (we didn't have air conditioning in the house, except for my room, due to the central AC going out), I'm hoping we can play the game again, now that I'm doing better, but I need to do those first.

Okay, it's really quiet. I've got a little time. I think I'll go make coffee and wash some dishes, so those are done, and then set an alarm for 8:30 AM and do some reading to get something off my list. Oh, and I can eat breakfast now. I took my thyroid pill over an hour ago. I have to wait to eat with that.

I've pretty much spent the day

elevating my leg and sleeping for about 2-3 hours at a time, and then getting up briefly for food and water. The notable exception was about 3:30 pm, when I had just spoken to YKWIA, who was checking up on me. I heard a knock on the door, and thought it was way too early for my friend A, who is spending the night, to be there, as he was coming from work on the bus. I went outside and heard a motor outside. Thinking it might have been the post, and knowing I had CPAP materials on the way, I went outside and was up the first step without even realising it. I stopped there and cried, 'Wait!' It was a UPS truck. I asked the driver if he was trying to deliver to my apartment, and told him I was sorry, I'd just had surgery today, and hadn't gotten to the door in time. He backed up and gave me my package and had me sign for it, then went on his merry way. It was only after the adrenaline started to fade I'd realised what I'd done, and that while I wasn't obviously bleeding or anything bad, I was hurting a bit and it was time to go back inside. I was out of breath, and called YKWIA, who was somewhat exasperated with me and told me to go to bed.

I slept for a little while and then got up again about dinnertime, when A came over. He took out my forgotten trash from this morning. I oriented him to things like the phone, the food, TV, etc., and then ate something myself. Then it was time to take a pain pill and I went back to bed. This time it was a three-hour sleep. I came out to take my Lantus and get a snack (I hadn't eaten much at dinner, because pain pills rob me of my appetite, and my Byetta limits it a bit, too). I took out a blanket and pillow. He was asleep on the loveseat with 'Law & Order' on, which is sort of his natural habitat. I did have the air mattress out if he wanted that, but I think despite being nearly six feet tall he'd rather sleep on the loveseat rather than blow it up. So at least he has a blanket and the pillow, plus all the pillows (mostly small cat-shaped ones) to get comfortable with.

I got some water and went back to bed, this time starting up the laptop and I've got myself propped up against one of those pillows with arms and a pillow under my leg. Of course, I need to elevate it above the heart, so when I'm sleeping, I have three pillows--one regular, one sham, and one fluffy Euro pillow--stacked up and my leg on that without actually being behind my knee, as per instructions. I'll go back to that when I go back to bed. I just wanted to wait up a bit when it's time to take my next tablet for the night, which should be in a few minutes. Then I'll go back to bed. I hope A is not too bored. I'm doing better than we expected and was up a bit when he came in, and when he called YKWIA he passed on in no uncertain terms that I was to take it easy, not wait on him, and get some rest. It's nice to be loved. :)

Not surprisingly

with the sun, and my feet up, and the timed meditation gong that I had on my phone, I got very, very relaxed. After the attempt at meditation was over (I am terrible at it, but the very attempt does relax me), I fell asleep for a little while. I woke up about an hour later, which wasn't too bad, but then struggled to actually stay awake and get up. So, I didn't make it to the library. I'll have to do that later in the week. I have a few days to pick up that book, which sounds interesting. It's called Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 by Jefferson Morley. I have a flip desk calendar that suggests books to read, and this was the one for yesterday.

I also have a book out from the library on my Kindle called Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy by Paul Thomas Murphy. And then a regular book out as well No Job For a Lady by Carol McCleary, which is a fictional mystery with famed journalist Nellie Bly as its protagonist. So I have a lot of reading on my plate for now. Plus I'd like to check out McCleary's Alchemy of Murder (also Nellie Bly, but with Jules Verne and Oscar Wilde in it), as well as a book I started but didn't get to finish before turning back in, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe.

So, to that end, I'm going to read until it's time for bed. Good night.

When I was younger, I had a terrible case of brontophobia

I screamed when it thundered even at a few months old, according to my baby book. As a teenager, I dove under the kitchen table when there was a sudden crack of thunder nearby--in front of a guest. On my honeymoon, I wound up camping in the midst of one of the worst storm fronts the Atlanta region had ever seen, and when the camp got struck by lightning, I wound up in the foetal position in a puddle on the ground.

But phobias are tricky things. I tried to force myself to enjoy the sounds of thunder. I once held a brontophobic dog's paw through a storm because its stupid owner had left it in a cage it could crawl on top of AND leashed it, and it was trying to hang itself. And after years of thunder issues, it lessened to the point where I now have an application on my tablet called Sleepy Time that has several noises where you can choose what you go to sleep to, and I often choose rain and thunder.

So I guess it's no surprise that when the thunderstorm rolled through this evening, I fell asleep. Still, it amazes me that I've come this far. It was definitely a phobia, as strong as those I know other people have against spiders and snakes. My reactions were without thought and instant. But in my own way I guess I desensitised over time, and that's good, because you simply cannot escape the occasional thunderstorm.

Now, I still have some issues if I'm actually out in the lightning and thunder, so I'm not entirely without fear. But if it's distant, or I'm inside, and it's a run-of-the-mill storm, I'm fine. Yay!

This is rather nice and relaxing

At http://www.soundsleeping.com/ they have a mixer that allows you to put together a variety of sounds to help you sleep. Music includes drums or flute. Sounds include a creek, birdsong, rain, thunder, crickets, a bonfire, gulls, the ocean, or wind chimes. You can mix and match, with one space reserved for music and four other channels for sounds.

On that note, even though I should blog more, I'm heading to bed. I've had a root canal today, cut myself shaving, and generally had a rough couple of days--although it seems to be improving. I sleep with a fan, incidentally, and a colour-changing lamp with bubbles and light-weight marbles. But for napping in the comfy chair my screen savers or the Sound Sleeping website work well (since my computer is in the living room). Of course, there I can also hear the aquarium, with its natural cascade of water. I counted again and it looks like I have 20 baby fire platies; there are about five that are still quite tiny and pale, so they blend in. As far as I can tell, I didn't whisk any up during the great water change I did at 2 am the other night. I do need to get the vacuum I saw at Meijer that was battery-powered, though. There's nothing like using your mouth to suction aquarium water (especially when you have a broken filling and who knows what kind of shape that was in before the root canal).

Okay, enough. Good night. I'll try to post more tomorrow; I'm just really tired.