To Sleep: Perchance To Dream

To sleep: perchance to sleep.
-Me


Finally. Finally. Finally. Today I took the Continuous Passive Resistance machine back to Apria. Since the day I brought it home I have not had one restful night. I have been operating sleep deprived for about four weeks.

My husband sleeps better when I am lying beside him-which is great because I feel the same way. So, for 28 nights I have been sharing a bed with him and that damn machine. The thing took up one-quarter of the bed and made this low noise when it was on. A kind of noise that would wake me up at least four times a night because it was the same sound the refrigerator started making just before we replaced it. Add to that my husband's snoring-something he does when he sleeps on his back. Add his need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night; which I normally sleep through but since he had to untangle himself from the machine, the bedsheets, the blanket, and then scoot himself down to the end of the bed to get out of it, his leaving would wake me up. So, I've been walking around in a kind of zombie state for the last two weeks. My mind is operating on a two seconds delay in processing information.

My husband is almost as glad as me to see that machine go. The last week of lying with his leg in that machine was torure for him. He is not a back sleeper so being forced to lie in that postion for eight hours was almost unbearable for him. But he did it because he knew it would help his knee heal faster.

We are both looking forward to tonight. Tonight we get to sleep in a bed that now looks five times larger without that machine in it. A bed in which we both can stretch out. A bed in which we can both get a good night's sleep.