All I Want is Eight Straight Hours of Sleep!

As the title says, I would give just about anything for eight straight, uninterrupted hours of sleep.  I'm talking about that deep, restful sleep that you wake up from, ready to take on anything life has to throw at you.  I can't remember the last time I had that kind of sleep.  In fact, I can't remember the last time I had eight straight hours of bad sleep, to be honest with you!  Sleep is one of the things that fibro, and chronic pain, has stolen from me, and it is one of the things I miss the most.  I am exhausted all the time.  And no, exhausted isn't an exaggeration!

I have always had problems with sleep.  I experienced my first bout of insomnia at the ripe old age of ten.  I can remember lying in my bed, crying, because I was so very tired and couldn't fall asleep no matter what I did.  However, when you are ten, you seem to bounce back from things like that pretty quickly.  And the insomnia wasn't a constant thing.  Every three of four months, I would experience insomnia.  I would have a couple of sleepless nights and then things would go back to normal.  I learned how to deal with the occasional sleepless night.

My real problems with sleep started with when I was forty and first started having problems with my back.  Pain would have me lying awake for what seemed like days at a time.  The only time I would sleep would be right after my pain medication would kick in, and then I would be able to sleep for three or four hours at a time, but we all know that medicated sleep isn't good sleep.  I learned to function on less and less sleep, and I tried to convince myself that I really didn't need all that much sleep.  We all know that isn't true at all!

The effects of sleep deprivation are with me on a daily basis.  Not only am I tired all the time, I am frequently short tempered.  I snap at my husband and children over minor things.  I know I'm doing it, but I can't seem to stop myself.  I also experience an increase in the amount of depression that I deal with.  I can also feel the effects in a physical manor.  I have more headaches than I used to have and I can tell that my blood pressure is elevated after a long period of sleeplessness.  I can't find the energy to do the things that I know I need to do.  Simple things become almost impossible.  I can't think clearly, and I know that all of this is related to my lack of sleep.

And now, here we are ten years after having major back surgery which was supposed to "fix" me and didn't.  I am still dealing with chronic pain, and I still can't sleep!  I average about four hours of sleep a night.  Those four hours are rarely straight through, either.  I frequently wake up during the night; sometimes for a few minutes and other times for a few hours.  Many nights, I will lie there trying to talk myself into sleep, only to give up and get up after a couple of hours.  Some days, I am lucky enough to be able to take a nap, and other days I'm not.  And even though I am getting some sleep, it's still not the same as those blissful eight straight hours of sleep that I crave!