Sleep Deprivation

Last night I went through what has become my sleep routine, sad as it is. I took a tiny knock-off Benadryl tablet to help me become drowsy, read a book until my eyes felt grainy, then nodded off for a couple of hours until the pain in my hip woke me. At that point I went to the bathroom, took something for the pain and hoped to fall asleep within the next hour. Sometimes I fall back asleep quickly; other times I sit up, stretch my hip and resume my book until the pain medicine kicks in. In a worst-case scenario I will take a second Benadryl which seems to have an equal chance of either putting me back to sleep or wiring me until dawn.

When I returned from the bathroom at around 1:15 a.m. I fell back asleep quickly. As I dreamed that Katie's school was burning while her pants hung in the school window, I felt a strange tickling on my forehead. I brushed it off of my dream self, but it continued softly scratching until I awoke to find myself brushing my real-self hairline. The irritating culprit scrambled away and I almost fell back asleep before my brain could kick in. Almost.

What was that?! What if it was a spider? What if it was a brown recluse?!

I sat up as quickly as I could and turned on my light as a huge rush of sleep-squelching adrenaline surged through my system. Beside me on my green duvet cover was the evil tickler, a cave cricket like the one in the picture above. I flicked it off of my bed, immediately wishing I would have crunched it with my hardback book. Ick!

I've had enough trouble sleeping due to typical sleep stealers like pain, racing mind, too much caffeine and lack of exercise. Some people imagine that bugs are crawling all over them. In my case, they really are. I don't need this.

I need sleep. Deep, uninterrupted, non-drug-induced, long sleep.