Sleep Walk

A word of warning: If this post makes it sound like I’m freaking out, it’s only because I am.

Will has taken a turn for the worse in the past few days. I just realized tonight that I haven’t heard him laugh since sometime last week. He hasn’t really even smiled much lately, and even when he does it’s like something hurts him inside. That damn trip we took yesterday was too much for him……I should’ve known that, but I’m trying so hard not to see what I see that I actually believed him when he said he was OK.

He did little but sleep this evening; of course, he had conscious sedation when he was having his port implanted, and that tends to make one get through a day pretty fast. But it seems that the progress of his illness is accelerating, because every day brings another diminishment….the ribs show a little more, he eats a little less, his face looks more gaunt.

His voice is weak; he’s always mumbled, but now I can barely hear him sometimes. He’s losing interest in things now, and his tough talk from a week ago about fighting the cancer is down to the occasional comment about “wanting to stick around a while longer for everybody”. And tonight, he not only admitted he was scared, but HE asked ME to take care of the cat box, get his pills out of the downstairs bathroom cabinet, and bring them up to him.

This does. not. happen. EVER.

Tonight I’m not even praying for God to cure him, or even delay the inevitable; all I want is for him to be comfortable and at peace with whatever may come…..whenever it may come. And all I want for myself is some sleep.

I can’t even remember the last time I got a full night’s uninterrupted sleep. Either I can’t fall asleep, like the other night when I was up till dawn, or I can’t stay asleep—I wake up several times a night and get maybe 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours total at best. Right now it’s past two AM, I took all my bedtime meds hours ago, and there is no sign of Mr. Sandman even though I tossed in an Ativan tablet with them.

Yes, of COURSE I know that lack of sleep is one of the fastest ways for someone like me to decompensate. And yes, I know that I don’t need to turn into a hot mess when there’s a family crisis to be dealt with and everyone needs me to be strong. But sleep eludes me, as does any desire for food beyond the minimum necessary to sustain life. Will and I have both dropped ten pounds in the past two weeks alone, and while I certainly can afford it, this is NOT healthy, and I know what losing my appetite all too often presages.

Have you ever felt like you’ve gotten yourself entangled in a stirrup and then dragged along behind a runaway horse, unable to free yourself or even yell “Whoa”? Yep, that’s about the size of it….I feel absolutely powerless to stop this thing, or even slow it down to the point where I can absorb it all and handle it without going out of my gourd. But then, why SHOULD it slow down, just because I want it to—fucking cancer doesn’t owe me anything, now does it?

And so go my thoughts on a warm summer’s night, with my soulmate dozing fitfully in the recliner and myself pacing the floor in between paragraphs with no thoughts of sleep, even though my eyes burn and my body is screaming for rest.

There will be time for sleep and rest later, I tell myself. For now, I must watch over my beloved, and push away the dark thoughts that come unbidden when I least need to be preoccupied with them. There will be time for those later, too.