[Cancer, Personal]
[cancer|personal] Sleep fail and other details of life
Yesterday was miserable physically, though not emotionally. The previous night’s sleep issues bordered on catastrophic. A pointed reminder that while I’m on chemotherapy, my usual reserves simply are voting ‘not present.’ Even when I might feel otherwise okay, there’s no depth. I’m a lake with all surface, no bottom.
(Note to self: you might need to reconsider that last metaphor.)
I made it through the workday constructively and productively, and even managed to regretfully put
By yesterday afternoon, my brain was definitely checked out to the point where I avoided email, blogging or anything else where I might later regret what I’d written. Did manage some personal correspondence last night, and even read the last few pages of John Burdett’s excellent Bangkok 8 before crashing out for eight and a half hours. Let myself oversleep the “get up and walk” alarm this morning, but did make 30 minutes on the bike.
So, wow. Lessons learned? I’m not sure what. There wasn’t much I could do to control Tuesday’s digestive misadventures — even Imodium didn’t slow it down at all. That stuff is usually solid for me, if I am in bad enough shape to need it. I definitely should have been more diligent about managing my sleep problems that night, but I’m not sure how.
It’s back to spoon theory. I can still do anything I want, but not everything. And sometimes the “do” choices are out of my control, such as when the chemo takes over my body for a while as it did Tuesday day and overnight. Even my spoons are not always my own.
In slightly related news, down the road a little, I want to frame up two blog posts. One, I want to explore my previously stated notion that conservatism is fundamentally a failure of empathy. That points to some odd conclusions when I work it through, and I need to be very thoughtful in expressing them. Two, I recently mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that there are topics on which I self-censor. I find I want to talk about that, and why I do so, but even raising the question opens the issues that cause me to self-censor in the first place. Again, much thoughtfulness is needed, along with a timeframe where donning a fireproof suit to manage my comment stream will seem like a reasonable idea.
In the mean time, the workday beckons.
Posted: 5:45 am Thu January 28 2010 |
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You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
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thelittlefluffycat
January 28th, 2010 at 5:51 amYes, bad nights are natural recliner nights. If your brain’s not working, maybe put up a sign for those nights to remind yourself? & just keep the things in the recliner that make it comfortable to sleep, so you don’t have to go get, slanket or such, arm-organizing pillow, neck support?
Meran
January 28th, 2010 at 6:34 amJay, you and I really need to talk extensively, privately, about these things; my life is ~mostly about these exact things. I have some workarounds I can share with you.
Elf M. Sternberg
January 28th, 2010 at 10:51 amIt’s funny that you mention that conservatism is mostly a lack of empathy. I’ve come to a parallel conclusion: modern conservatism is indistinguishable from fatalism. A lot of the rage from the right has crystallized from “we don’t want things to change!” to “how dare you try to change!”
Meran
January 28th, 2010 at 10:46 pmI see more fear ther, too. It’s driving all our politics anymore… Many personal life decisions too.
Very sad.
Meran
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