The Dreadfulness of the Night

In case you missed it, check out part 1 of this article, "Sleep, Old Buddy, Old Pal ... Where Are You?

Night after night I foolishly go to bed hoping that it will be the night when my sleep is miraculously restored. Oh, what a fool I am.

Instead, I sleep in chunks. Pathetic, piddly chunks. Mere scraps handed to me out of sheer pity. These chunks do not restore my broken brain, nor do they heal my bruised body. Instead, they make me feel like a semi-human.

Trying to adjust

I have slept just enough to competently function in the daylight (albeit, with the help of my copious, complicated medication regime.) On the other hand, I have not slept enough to flourish and thrive in the world.

I would like to say you learn to accept your new reality. But that would be a bold-faced lie. I refuse to accept that this level of sleep deprivation is acceptable. Instead, I have just begrudgingly adjusted to it. All the while, secretly hankering for a return to yesteryear.

Small scraps of sleep

Scrappy dappy doo sleep. The chunks and scraps of sleep are one facet of the nightly struggle I endure. Whilst another facet, which oft goes unnoticed is the fact that when I do wake up after my measly 1 to 3 hours of sleep. The efficacy of the previous medication dosage has worn off and therefore I am in excruciating discomfort.

It feels as if some trickster has poured cement into my limbs while I slept. This forces me to medicate and then due to my extreme physical pain and discomfort, I am unable to physically adjust myself to regain the level of comfort I need to get to sleep again.

Physical discomfort

So, I am forced to wait. But, by then my mind has characteristically gone from 0 mph to 70 mph. It has cataclysmically catastrophized so much so that I have often found myself silently wishing (on the particularly longer excruciating nights) to cease existing.

The 3-fold combination of my medication of not wanting to work, and the added perception of the night seeming so endless, solitary, and bleak, combined with the cackling noise of my thoughts seems like a burden greater than I can manage.

The noise of my thoughts

Stuck in my own body, immobile, no recourse for distraction at this awful witching hour. I am a prisoner in my own body. So, this is when the thoughts take advantage and decide to take center stage in my head. The following thoughts whirl around in my head:

So, Shamsa, you know this disease does not improve, right? It just deteriorates.

Dopamine cells that are dead ... are just that, dead. Forever. They cannot be brought back to life.

So, what does that mean for us…what does our future hold? If our situation is bad now, the likely projection is that it will only get worse.

So, who will care for us in our old, much more haggard corpse-like state then?

Hence, the vitriolic thoughts whizz back and forth around in my head ... as if in a merry-go-round. Until, unbeknownst to me, I thankfully doze off.

Light always follows darkness

Only to be awakened by the glorious, warm sunlight bursting through my window blinds and the sweet and the innocent smiles of my 2 beautiful and bouncy children ... running to embrace me. And, for me, nothing else matters. The dreadfulness of the night is just a distant memory.

I press delete in my heart and my mind. The current moment, here, now ... is all that matters. My children do not see a broken, bruised Parkinson’s, ridden woman. They see me. Their mummy. The unconditional love that radiates at that moment is precious and palpable.

It is priceless and that is the reason I choose to fight another day. That is the reason I refuse to let the Pesky Parkinator win. That is why I will ferociously fight for victory wherever and whenever I can gain it.