more insomnia...

But first the countdown... I took injection number 28 last Friday. Twenty to go. It is now indeed a countdown. I'm tired, but can't sleep, foggy, grumpy, can't stick with a task for more than 20 minutes at a time. But I'm counting down. Tomorrow night it will be nineteen to go. I spell out the countdown numers. It feels good. I'm being weird...

The past couple of weeks I've had a tough time sleeping. The pattern is I go to bed at a reasonable hour and end up tossing and turning. Fortunately, my wife has been put on a nightly med that knocks her out, else I'd be hearing about it. When I finally get to sleep, I waken myself with my thrashing. From there it's weird. One night I bedded down on the couch. Another night I slept for three hours on the floor. The next day I'm so tired that I drag all day. If I sleep more than an hour, I won't go to sleep at night.

I did skip my Elavil one night because I failed to renew the scrip (see previous post. Got it the next day, but I wonder if I haven't developed some resistance. I'm only taking 10 mg. It may be time to boost the dose. I'll see the doc tomorrow.

I've been having a lot of congestion in my upper chest -- it's a constant "harumph" and a lot of thick junk. If you're reading this, you must be into this sort of thing. See the first paragraph of the first post of this blog. I'm taking Robitussin expectorant (guaifenesin) to try to thin it out. I'm also having a nasty cough now and then. Yesterday I felt my chest going into bronchial spasms. I recognize it from having a case of bronchitis years ago. That spasm feels like something in your throat but it's not. It's the bronchial tubes going into spasms. It's happened once before since I started this mess. Luckily, we had an Albuterol inhaler left over from an allergy problem my daughter had last year. It was still in date, but I confess I didn't look at the time. One hit set me right.

Home life is busy but seems to swirl past me. My wife is having a tough time at work which seems to have set her off balance. Over the past few months she's started having crying jags. She knew something was wrong and went to the doc who gave her some anti-depressants (and a follow-up appointment). We'd talked about that before. She's not entirely comfortable taking them, but it seems to be doing her some good. She has settled down and says she's more relaxed, but foggy.

The doc doesn't see this as being a long-term issue, it's just a reaction to her situation that seems to have gone over the top. As the doc said, "Step back and look at yourself from another person's viewpoint." With everything that's happened over the past couple of years -- a death and a couple of illnesses in the family, a persistent squabble between two members of her family that doesn't involve her directly, but certainly affects her, my illness and treatment, etc. etc. etc. It adds up.

Meanwhile, the kids are getting ready for school, Son's arm is out of the cast and football practice has started, Daughter 1 and 2 are all off in their things. Daughter 1 in particular had a shock this past week. A friend of hers from school died hiking in the mountains with his brother. I try to be there for her in my clumsy way. It's tough. Both of the older two knew the kid. I'm encouraging them to go to the memorial service -- kids will tend to skip such things if they can. But they need to show support for the family. Way too much reality, that. Sort of puts my little ailment in perspective. My kids are here, healthy, and even speak with me now and then.

Meanwhile, my wife and I bury ourselves in 24. We got hooked on the series last year and have been renting the DVDs. The previous season is the most implausible, convoluted, ridiculous, video game, comic book of a television show I have ever seen in my life. In other words, it's fun. I never knew that L.A. was the center of so much terrorist activity. Oh, and if you're ever following a terrorist and he stops for gas, but you need to delay him while your techie buddy positions a satellite to cover him through the canyons, the best method is to hold up the gas station. If it's good enough for Jack Bauer, it's good enough for me.

I heard they're making a movie version of 24. It will be real time like the TV show, but in order to make it short enough for a movie, they'll just have everybody do what Jack Bauer tells them to. It will be called 2.

Nearly midnight. I think I've bleated here for long enough.