Prologue: As I post this (Sunday afternoon, Oct 2, 2022), relief and rescue operations are on-going in Lee County (just north of us). That’s where Ft. Myers Beach and Sanibel Island are. As of this moment there have been 42 deaths and 800 rescues in Lee County alone. While many of the residents are very wealthy, areas impacted include people of limited means who lost their entire existence. We are so lucky on many levels – the storm surge didn’t hit us and we live in a community that ‘takes care of us’ by planning evacuation and shelter in place provisions. Our electricity came back on yesterday afternoon.
If you want to provide assistance, here are a few relief organizations we know are legitimate and are doing a great job.
Harry Chapin Food Bank Disaster Relief (the leading Hunger and Relief organization in this five-county area) - a charity navigator score of 96.4
Lee County Community Cooperative - a charity navigator score of 96.6
American Humane – pet rescue
A Three Pee Night
After two nights with hurricane Ian rattling the windows, ripping large branches from the trees, and uprooting the large avocado tree outside our bedroom window, you’d think I’d sleep through the night without the winds.
But no. It’s one of the too many nights when every cell in my body seems to protest sleep. My hips hurt. I itch. It’s too hot or too cold. Since I’m awake so many times, I have to pee, I have to pee, I have to pee. It’s a three-pee night.*
I sleep on my side, or should I say both sides. I toss from side to side because my hips throb after some period of time. Some nights this tossing doesn’t keep me awake. Tonight, it does.
I hear that hip pain while sleeping is common with seniors. I wonder if the reason is the same as the pain in your butt from sitting too long. Experts say you lose muscle in your butt when you’re older and that’s why it hurts to sit on an unpadded chair for too long. I don’t have that problem. My butt has plenty of padding. So do my hips.
I ask Dr. Google about hip pain while sleeping on your side. She mentions a lot of factors. The first, osteoarthritis, probably isn’t the cause for me since, lucky me, I have only minor osteoarthritis. The second, preventable, cause is poor sleeping position – “Direct pressure on the hip you’re lying on can be enough to trigger pain.” So pain from sleeping on your side is caused by sleeping on your side.
I’ve tried sleeping on my back. I haven’t been able to train myself to do that. By some magic, I slept on my back when my wrist was broken. But as soon as the cast came off, it was back to side sleeping.
Sleeping on my back presents another problem. If I’m on my side. The cat sleeps in my leg crook, which doesn’t keep me awake. If I sleep on my back, the cat sleeps on my shins. Talk about discomfort. (He does the same for hubby (Dave) who sleeps on his back).
I wonder if the mattress might be a solution. A few years ago, when we were travelling, we spent the night at a hotel outside of Chattanooga, TN. We both slept like babies. No hip pain for me. The mattress was perfect. We pulled the sheets up to see the brand label. No label. We asked at the front desk. No one knew. They said they’d ask corporate and get back to us. They never did. I should have written down the name of the hotel and contacted corporate myself.
I don’t know what kind of mattress would work - soft or firm. Mistakes are expensive and you can’t tell by a one minute lay down at the mattress store. We have a pillow top, which sounds like it would be somewhat soft but it seems like it’s firm. I need Goldilocks to help me shop for mattresses.
In addition to the hips, I’ve got the itchies. The ends of my hair hitting the pillow feel like steel wool. My scalp itches. My ears itch. Didn’t I get all the shampoo out of my hair and ears? Did I use too much laundry detergent on the sheets and they are making me itch? Later, my finger was sweating under my wedding band and even that got the itchies. I struggled to remove it.
When I google what causes itchy skin, it comes up with dry skin, rashes from allergies or bug bites, eczema and some other ghastly sounding diseases like foot-and-mouth disease. I don’t have any of that. Then it lists some really scary causes: cancer, liver disease, kidney disease, diabetes. Eek, don’t blood tests tell you if you have those diseases?
If tossing and the itchies aren't enough, I play the cover on, cover off game. I get hot – cover off. I get chilly, cover on. I’m past the night sweats stage. And Dave has the same problem, so it's not a female thing. I think it’s tied to the air conditioner cycle: when its time for the AC to come on I get hot and remove the cover, when it’s been on for a while I need the cover. I have the same cycle during the day. Sweater on, sweater off.
Reading isn’t lulling me back to sleep. I’ve been awake so long, I’m getting anxious.
I try paying attention to my breath; and repeat meditation saying, “Breathing in I calm my body and mind. Breathing out I relax.” After ten minutes I’m still non-calm, nor relaxed because I’m still not sleepy. Did someone slip no doze into my water?
I try another calming exercise: tensing your muscles from the top of your head to your toes. I can’t figure out how to tense some body parts – how do you tense your scalp, your biceps, your toes? I tense my teeth and bite the tip of my tongue. Ouch! No kidding.
I don't know why I have so many sleepless nights. I don't nap during the day, unless I fall asleep reading a book in the afternoon. I don’t want to turn into one of those seniors who sleep all day and stay up all night.
I give up. Drugs. The last time this happened (last week) I popped a Tramadol pill I’ve been hording since my wrist surgery two years ago. That didn’t work, so tonight I’m trying Benadryl. That works, sometimes. It might at least cure the itchies. (By the way, Benadryl has the same active ingredient as the sleep aid ZQuill, at half the cost). I used to use Benadryl a lot, but the drug info sheet says prolonged use causes all sorts of nasty things like dementia and anxiety. More anxiety?
When I was in the night sweats era, I listened to audio tapes and they would lure me back to sleep. My favorites were humorous stories by Baily White, NPR commentator, and Leo Buscaglia’s Loving Each Other stories. They would distract me from my physical discomforts. Amazingly I still have the tapes. Did I think to save a tape player?
After I search for the tape player, I’ll investigate the millions of sleeping apps out there. Hopefully they don’t cause dementia, liver disease, kidney disease or cancer. And one of them might really work.
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* Three-pee-night: A reference to "three dog night" – a night so bitterly cold you need three dogs to keep you warm. I bet that would keep you awake, too.
Sue, this sounds like so many of my nights!
Bev