Delirium

I don't think I've ever been this ill.

Wednedsay, after trying to stay awake all day in order to collapse that night into oblivion, I was wide awake. I tried a hundred positions in bed, I moved to the couch and sampled a few more. I turned off the lights. I put on just the television. I skimmed channels until 5:30 and all I learned is that music videos suck as badly as they ever did, and that I really don't want to learn how to get rich quick selling real estate. I finished my book and started another. I ached and coughed and snoofled and sneezed and got no relief.

So yesterday, I get the kiddos off to school and prepare to go back to bed. NOW I can collapse.

Um, no.

Instead I fought for sleep for the entire day. I left the bedroom maybe three times, but could not relax. As the day wore on, I began to worry that I'd miss picking up the LC, or that I'd slide into oblivion just as JJ needed me to pick him up. That, of course, didn't help.

But the Bigun saved me by picking up her sister, and shortly after that, JJ walks in having convinced a buddy from work he needed a ride home early to take care of me. So now I have permission to relax.

Nope. Nada. Zip. My mind by this time had gone into overdrive, reviewing every project I am involved in, every chore left undone in my illness, even revisiting the most inane follies of my youth. I lay there thinking about Bryan marrying Vickie, and why he ever did that, and about that flirtation I had with John and how dumb that was. What I will wear to Puppet School next weekend and whether the LC needs new shoes. I can't turn it off no matter what I try!

JJ keeps things going while I'm trying to rest, and after I eat and the LC is down, he tries to help me sleep. A backrub, running his fingers over my shoulders, the massage he does when I have sinus headaches. I'm finally beginning to let go. And sleep.

For two hours. At midnight I am awake and panicked and crying "I'll never get to sleep!" I'm literally thrashing around on the bed, afraid I'll go insane from lack of sleep. Poor JJ is only half-conscious at this, except when I thrash on him, and he mumbles and throws an arm over me, praying I will shut up. It must have taken an hour to settle back down and fall asleep again. Then, waking just once more but with far less desperation, I finally sleep soundly until JJ wakes me to take him to work.

So the sinus pressure is lessened, the coughing has calmed down, the headache is for now at bay, and I am rested, somewhat. But I'm petrified of not sleeping again. I have a whole new insight into insomnia, and people who get addicted to sleeping pills. I'm usually a person who knows my own mind and what I want to do to solve a problem. But last night I was helpless. I have not known that complete loss of control, the loss of hope, the raging of fear like that, EVER. It's that scene in the movies where the horrible evil thing is finally vanquished and yet,... and yet... the heroine is tossing those wary looks over her shoulder, certain that It Is Coming Back. I looked into a place I never want to see again, and I'm so afraid it's waiting for me.