Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
To sleep
Residency training teaches us docs to function on little or no sleep. Although I have a lifetime of experience with sleep deprivation and insomnia, I must say residency gave me a thorough understanding of all degrees of sleeplessness. For example, it is far better to go without sleep than to get one hour of sleep. Nothing matches the malaise of one hour of sleep.
Two hours of sleep — now that ain’t half bad. On two hours, I could get all the ward work done and be primped for afternoon rounds. I would collapse when I got home, but I’d still be fresh and ready to go the following day. I’d get the work done without mistakes, too. I never made any serious mistakes until my chief year, but that’s another story.
But to feel really human you need to dream, and for that, two hours barely cuts it. Three or four at a minimum, which gives my mind time to spin its wheels and work out all the crazy shit.
Now that I’m out in the real world, all this sleep deprivation has little impact on my patients. I know I’m not as personable when I’m tired. It’s hard to care about people when I’ve been coasting along, four hours of sleep (or less) each night for three or four nights running. It’s even hard to fake caring about people (and, here’s a carefully guarded secret: docs fake it a LOT. Which is, I suppose, better than not bothering to fake it at all).
No, the rough stuff takes place inside my head, where creativity is the first casualty, temper the next. After that, my thought processes fall apart. But hey, I’m a seasoned insomniac, I know well enough to ignore the self-destructive batshit which starts crowding out everything else. I remind myself of the things I consider true when I’m well rested.
I feel a little like that character in Memento who tattoos himself with the basic facts of his existence since he forgets everything each evening. My tattoos would read:
This is your family. They love you, you love them.
This is you. You’re an okay guy, especially after seven hours of sleep.
And, bottom line, in the universe of disease, insomnia isn’t that bad. I meet people every day who cope with far worse. How do they deal with it? The same way any of us deal with it — we just do. Because the alternative sucks monkey balls.
Yet I wonder if one day I’ll wake up in my car on a road a thousand miles away, not recognizing any of the street names or landmarks, wondering how I got there. But even that wouldn’t work. You can’t drive out of your own head.
D.
I suffer from a very mild form of insomnia, where even if I’m up late, I’m up at the usual early time the next morning, usually around 5:00 AM.
I know that when I’m tired, I get depressed. I view the world through a dingy grey lens. But I also know that I know this, as I think you know that you know it, and I know that a solid night’s sleep will clear my vision and let me see the truth.
You’re a good and worthy person, Doug. It’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s read B+W for a while.
Oh, and DBAs fake being interested, too. We don’t really care about your petty data problem, or the fact that you’re too dumb to figure out how to configure your own DSN. Just so you know.
Honestly, I think everybody fakes caring at some point. I know I did when I was a CSR. You really almost have to after hearing about people’s problems all day, every day. Otherwise it’s just overwhelming.
Insomnia is rarely my problem. I’m far more likely to sleep too much. But there ahve been times when I haven’t slept enough, and giddy certainly happens, but then it fades into a dragging sensation.
What Dean said – you’re a good and worthy person, Doug. The fact that you make the effort to fake it when you’re too tired to care is a big deal – a lot of people wouldn’t bother, would just expect everyone around them to adjust to their mood.
That self-destructive batshit stuff really sucks – mine’s usually hormonal rather than sleep deprivation, but it still sucks. I’ll be sending sleep vibes your way tonight, K?
Yes, to the insomina. I’m a slow sleeper – can’t get the brain to stop spinning – and a frequent waker – once I’m asleep, I can’t stay there. The depression is worse if I’m not sleeping, which is most of the time. I head to bed around 1 am, most nights and wake at 5:30. Sometimes I get up then, sometimes I make myself doze until 8 or so. Waking up about 10 times a night is a good night. Any more than that I’m about useless the next day, less and I feel pretty perky.
Btw, if you ever call my house between 3:13 and 3:18 AM, I am awake. Guaranteed. 😉
I think my last decent night of sleep was last fall sometime. Ah well.
And you are a great person, Doug. {{hugg}}
I went to this epileptic focus group. We were supposed to go around the room and tell “our story.” Most epileptics have memory issues due to seizures and their meds, some on the scale of movie “Momento. This one woman took a camera with her everywhere. She had no memory. She took a picture of everything she did during the day. Then at night she looked back on her digital. She only remembered the moment she was in. She looked like she was 15 years my junior. I could not begin to imagine her life. She cried when she told her story. It still haunts me. She held her camera up for us to see and told us it was her memory.
Thanks, everyone. Last night wasn’t bad. For today, to try to be a little different, I renounced caffeine and worked out for 45 minutes. We’ll see how that works. I’m tired right now, but I know from experience this could change the minute the lights are out and I’m horizontal.
Again, thanks 🙂