Will the Real Insomniac Please Stand Up?

It started when Mark and I were first married.  I had this silly notion that we would run on a similar schedule.  In our newlywed bliss we would get up at the same time and retire at the same time.  This would have worked perfectly except my sweet new husband didn’t go to bed until two or three in the morning.  Regardless of when he fell asleep he was up at five or six in the morning.

I couldn’t keep pace.  I was more of a minimum of eight hours of sleep person myself.

It was a whole new world for me.  At the time we knew nothing of ADHD or the many orbiting conditions like insomnia.  Now, I am well versed in those conditions, especially insomnia.

Mariah followed Mark.  I had never heard of an infant that slept only 8 hours in a 24 hour period but that was Mariah.  It was insane.  Getting her to sleep became an art form.  She would sleep, in the swing, in the bathroom, under the fan, for little spurts of time.

As she got older that time shrank until when she was in junior high she was only sleeping a couple of hours at night.  Not healthy for her or anyone else in the family.  Once diagnosed with ADHD and medicated we figured some things out. 

What worked for Mariah was a small dose of stimulants in the evening.  It calmed her brain down, helped her process her thoughts.  It seemed like the opposite of what you might do to get someone to sleep, but it worked.  It changed her world.  Sleep was no longer elusive. 

Of course, by then there was another to pick up the slack.    His room was right off the living room and he would call out to make sure I was still up as long as he was awake.  Occasionally, he would blurt out some random thought or realization.

“Why do they call it leap year?” he called out one night.  “It is really only one day of one month.  Shouldn’t it be leap day or leap month?”  These were puzzling thoughts for a five year old late at night. 

Those thoughts were over run  by more troubling thoughts.  They were the kind of thoughts that grow out of too much time to think and no medication to help you control your thoughts.  He started worrying about fires and other “safety issues” as he calls them.

He would lay awake, after his roomy finally passed out asleep.  He would eventually confide that he would picture a toy in his mind and consider if it would burn or melt in a fire.  Toy after toy, it was uncontrollable self torture. 

We tried a litany of medications and other solutions.  Melatonin took the edge off for awhile.  Taking a stimulant at night didn’t work for him.  It just better focused his thoughts and increased anxiety.  It was one failed attempt after another over the last several years. 

In the mean time, he and his roomy had developed all these night time rituals.  His poor roommate, it seemed, was being tortured by hours of activity.  

Then the magic finally happened and we found what worked for our hardcore insomniac.  He takes his medicine and an hour later he is asleep on a regular basis.  He is sleeping.  He is growing and gaining weight.  Life is good. 

You would think that his roomy would be finally free from hours and hours of late night sleeplessness.  Not so.  The strangest thing happened.  Our hardcore insomniac passed out every night but his roomy didn’t.

All those nights we thought that the insomniac was keeping his roomy up.  All those nights and it turns out that the roomy is just as much of an insomniac. 

We waited some time to make sure it wasn’t just habit.  We ran through the simple solutions; those didn’t work. Then one night the little roomy came out crying, begging for the same medicine so that he could sleep too.  Insomnia is no fun alone.

The next day I made an appointment. Now all the insomniacs in the house are sleeping.   

Except me.

Cow Incident

I heard a friend talking about our neighborhood once.  He said, “That’s the only place I know where people build fences to keep the cows out instead of in.”

It is the truth.  We live in a neighborhood with free range horses and cattle. We have lived there for several years now.  Up until this last year the cows seemed to leave us alone. 

Then something changed, it has been war ever since Christmas when they broke down the fence.   It was great fun for our Australian Shepard who got to chase cows all day; not so much fun for us.  That was just the beginning. 

I have often wondered what the draw was to our yard.  There are luscious yards all over the valley, ours looks like a woman with the black thumb of death gardens there.  But they kept coming back and breaking in all spring and into summer.  

 My kids have often joked that this one big black steer was the ring leader of the cows.  They even named him, Boss Cow. He always seemed like the first one in.

I may have inadvertently gotten revenge the other night.  We were headed home from an activity late at night.  It was very dark, no moon and no street lights.   By the time I saw that huge steer right in front of me there was nothing I could do about it.  I slammed on the brakes and braced myself.  From there it was screaming and crying and freaking out times eight passengers.

The boys were first out of the van.  They were checking on the situation.  I was sure that cow was underneath us because the van wouldn’t move.  I looked around, there was steam pouring from the engine, and the battery light was on.  The boys made a quick report - no cow. 

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised since that huge old black steer’s back came up over the top of the hood of my gigantic 15 passenger van.  He was big and strong - he was gone. 

Now everyone is out of the van, the boys are running around pumped on adrenaline.  The girls are screaming and crying.  Mariah and Hannah were especially as they stared down the cow as it was hit and rolled up onto the windshield.  I am pointing out that the battery light is on while trying to call my husband and take a picture to send him. 

Some Good Samaritan neighbors had shown up to help.  As it turns out the neighbors heard the crash while enjoying the evening on their back porch and called the fire department.  They were now searching dutifully for the injured cow.  Someone has got to find it and notify the owner. 

My husband was an hour away at work so he sent our good family friends, Don and Steffani, to help.  I tell Don all about how the battery light is on.  Then I tell the Fire department and the Highway Patrol.  Finally, Don kindly points out that the battery light is on because the cow moved the battery and the rest of the engine a good foot and squished it. 

By now the adrenaline is wearing off and the pain is setting in.  The EMTs are not plagued with a boring night at the station.  Mariah seems the most injured - her neck and back are really hurting.  They are strapping her down to a c-spine board as she entertains them as only Mariah can.

Just as we have an uncharacteristically large numbers of family members with ADHD we also have five of the six with a genetic disorder that makes for very loose, bendy joints called Ehlers Danlos. 

There Mariah is on the back board and she flips her arm out backwards, like she does on a regular basis, and says, “do you think this is okay, I feel a little bit of pressure.”  The EMT was freaked out for a moment until the firemen started laughing - they had encouraged this prank - silly firemen, Mariah does not need encouragement.

We were now a sprouting row of back boards in the field by the side of the road.  Secured and taped down, just to be safe.  The neighbors are still looking dutifully for the poor injured cow.  They start to move us to the ambulances.  I can’t say what the rides in the other ambulances were like but I was in the ambulance with Mariah. 

Mark knew exactly which ambulance we were in as we arrived at the hospital because the paramedics got out of the truck laughing.  She started out by reading the triage tag they had tied to each of.  When our EMT got in and asked how we were doing Mariah was quick to point out it could be worse they could have tagged her with the black strip labeled morgue.  It was all good with Mariah as long as there was no black tag.

She pointed out that this trip was an inconvenience since she was supposed to be sitting at home with her dog, eating Greek yogurt and granola, finding out the end of the third Indiana Jones movie.  She mused that now she would never know if he finds the Holy Grail or not.  

She wondered if it was just her or if anyone else was in the mood for a taco.

She went on to recommend that the ceiling was rather boring for someone strapped to a board, only capable looking straight up.  She recommended an inspirational poster taped to the ambulance ceiling.  Maybe a cute kitten dangling from a branch with text that reminded people to, "hang in there" or a beautiful ocean view with a breaching whale.

I finally told her she had to stop because laughing hurt so badly.

As it has turned out her injuries were the most severe and she is still struggling with whiplash pain.

Mark was being brave, visiting room to room, going with each of us to x-ray.  Don was doing the same, visiting bedside to bedside checking on everyone, keeping everyone calm.   It was early morning before we were out of the hospital emergency room. Steffani and another friend, Joey, were keeping those at home calm.

The big black steer was never found.  I kind of wonder if our attentive neighbors have been enjoying some good BBQ on that back porch.  Beef it's whats for dinner. 

With some degree of sadness we said good bye to the Monster Van that had been so much a part of our lives for 7 years. That van had taken care of the mundane day to day running.  That van  had driven us to the ER for x-rays, ruptured ligaments, and more than one set of stitches. That van had taken us on adventures all over California and even all the way to Oregon for a family reunion. 

As my husband Mark put it, in the end it did its job, that van kept us safe. 

Back to School - Back to Blogging!

What a summer!  I think I made a tactical error some where between the hectic end of school and the beginning of summer.  I said, “I wish it would all just stop so I could just catch my breath.”

Boy did it stop!  I do not believe I will ever beg the world to stop again.

It started with the water pump on the van deciding that it also wanted to stop, stop holding water that is.  I would put fluid in the radiator and watch it pour out the water pump.  This made life come to a screeching halt.  We could not risk driving very far and we live very far from civilization.

We got it fixed though - proving my theory about cars that they are nothing but a big expense.  We pay to buy them, to register them, to insure them, to put gas in them, and to fix them. 

We thought we were on the road again but we were quickly hit by the first wave of summer pestilence - strep throat.  When I say we I mean ALL of us except my oldest daughter Rachel and my husband Mark.

Misery is somewhere in the definition of strep throat.  I always judge it as strep when I get to the point where I would rather die than swallow.  Misery is also somewhere in the definition of cabin fever.  That’s what we suffered as we spent days stranded by the van then house bound by strep. 

Cabin fever is no fun but cabin fever with 5 ADHD kids who are just well enough to be cranky is awful.

We recovered and we were excited to go watch the girl’s band perform at an open mall show.  We were all loaded up and headed down the freeway when the van began making funny noises.  I am not a fan of automotive noises.

There we were going 65 mph, or maybe a little faster, down the freeway when suddenly we had no power steering and no power brakes.  That’s when learned the importance and function of the serpentine belt. 

A car full of ADHD minds contemplating the possible ends of no power steering or brakes is not something I would recommend unless you are into horror films.  The anxiety went through the roof.

We learned later that the new water pump was defective and the entire nose of the water pump broke off taking the serpentine belt with it. 

It’s okay though we made it to the open mall where we enjoyed the girls’ music, the 100+ degrees weather, and heat stroke.

For our next trick we all got food poisoning.  I wasn’t sure if it was the flu or food poisoning at first.  I leaned towards food poisoning because everyone started running to the bathroom at the same time. 

The clincher, for me, was when the dog started throwing up too.  I was trying to get our beloved Aussie, Sid, out the door when I saw left over fast food wrappers empty, licked clean, on the floor.  She is notorious for he sneaky snacking.  At that point I was sure it was food poisoning.

Those volcano nachos lived up to their name.

Don’t get me wrong, we also had our moments of fun. We took an absolutely wonderful and uneventful trip to Monterey.  It was a relaxing and beautiful day with no sickness or car problems.  It was exactly what I had in mind when I thought it might be nice for the world to stop for a little bit.

And now we are officially “back to school.”  My older kids started mid August and the younger ones, the ones I home school, started at the end of August. 

Just to leave the summer with a big bang I hit a big huge cow on the way home the night before school started.  Scrunched the front of the van, stopped us dead in our tracks.  Ironically, the cow has never been found.  The cow ran off; the van has never run again. The beloved “Monster Van” is being handled by the “total loss” department. 

We had the excitement of bunches of us laid out of back boards in the field on the side of the road.  Three ambulances and hours in the ER later, we confirmed that we were all okay. There were no broken bones, just bruises, whiplash, and cow induced emotional trauma.  Flashbacks of the cow rolling up the windshield.

I say bring back the chaos of the school year. I may never ask for things to just stop again, it is too dangerous!

I would not send our summer to the “total loss” department but I am very glad it is back to school and back to the blog!

PS...A special thank you to Amanda for a very inspiring email that reminded me how important this blog is to me and others ~