Oh Sleep! It is a Gentle Thing.

Oh sleep! It is a Gentle Thing. Beloved from pole to pole!

It's 4:51 a.m., and I am reciting "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" trying to call upon sleep. When that isn't working, I wind up listening to the same episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" that I must've seen over ten times, and just looking super pretentious on this blog by quoting the poem. In truth, I am hoping the seemingly oxymoronic approach of listening to the crass shouting of Gordon Ramsey will soothe me back to sleep after being abruptly woken up, two hours ago, with a headache. If Romantic Poetry doesn't work, try another emotionally challenged Brit. 

From poetry, to "poetry." Those guys.

There is so much more to talk about when it comes to headaches - the crux of my impending diagnosis and the majority of my medical history involves migraines. It is probable that my diagnosis will indeed be migralepsy, which opens up a can of worms I can't begin to catch at 5 a.m. More on that later.

"Insomnia" is such a strong word. I very much respect the complexity and severity of this very real disease, and find tossing it around to describe one night of troubled sleep as repellent as someone claiming to have OCD to describe a minor idiosyncrasy. Hence, I will refrain from another case of self diagnosis (migralepsy is enough for one night). But the number of nights in which my sleep is interrupted and stolen from me continues to increase, and likely contributes to the increasing onset of seizures (which will then occur later in the day). Exhaustion makes your brain do crazy things).

I. HATE. THIS. The abundant use of images is just to make my the page look nice so I can be mildly pleased I accomplished something I like to look at while I counted the minutes of sleep I lost. This pervasive inability to stay asleep is both astounding and completely unexpected. I had occasional difficulty falling asleep before, especially as a teenager, but it was never this nuanced or severe, nor did I ever have difficulty staying asleep.

If you read my prior posts, you know I have no problem falling asleep, and alternatively, have difficulty staying awake sometimes. The other problem, I admit, is much more inconvenient. But let's be real, obviously one informs the other. I'm certainly tired right now, and would love nothing more than to fall back to sleep for just a few minutes. I know I need to sleep, and simultaneously accept that I will not be able to.

To explain the sensation of being unable to sleep when you're this tired (and this frightened of the consequences) is impossible. All I want to do is capture a few minutes, even an hour, to let my brain rest. I know how crucially important rest is for a brain riddled with migraines and seizures, and loaded up on myriad medications.

This symptom absolutely coincides with the November onset of the headaches and seizure activity, but it also coincides with medications I began taking to treat the headaches. Perhaps tonight the medication wore off and hence, a headache that was lying in wait woke me up. Or, maybe it's another medication that's causing the seemingly incessant migraines. Or, maybe it's something more insidious, something lurking in my brain causing all of these problems. And, what's even worse than some sort of catastrophic illness is the doctor's finding nothing at all; having no answers or solutions.

Stress, I know, impacts sleep. Obviously, having seizures is super stressful. But having an eating disorder, being a teenager, working for a totalitarian dictator (years ago), and never having enough money is also stressful. I have dealt with stress because I am human, and have dealt with it without having seizures or losing hours of sleep. There is something else going on that the "power of positive thinking" or "just powering through" will not help.

I apologize if that seemed aggressive. Blame it on the lack of sleep, on the seizures, on the rest of this crazy sauce night - but give me a pass on this one, okay? I'll be better tomorrow (this will be my epitaph).