Sleep Won't Come

It is 3:18 AM. I can not sleep. Sometimes when I lie in bed, my mind just will not shut up. I have a million thoughts dancing around in my head. Getting to sleep is sometimes a Catch 22. I need the TV on to go to sleep. The noise of Will & Grace or HGTV acts as camouflage for the many thoughts that are racing through my mind. I set the sleep timer on the television, and most nights I am in a deep enough sleep by the time the TV turns off, that I don't wake up at the snap and pop of it turning off. Not so tonight. Tonight when it turned off, the buzz and sizzle woke me right up. I was not yet in a deep enough sleep to dream past the sound. I stayed in the bed until about 1:00, then painfully aware that I had missed my opportunity for sleep, I stumbled (no humor intended) out of bed and downstairs to the comforting glow of the computer monitor.

The MS has been cruel as of late, keeping me from the very thing I love the most (other than my children and husband of course). During the days of the IV solumedrol event, when I felt all was wrong with the world, I could submerge myself in a sea of photographs, creating art as a way to drown my fear and pain. This last episode of aggravated lesion which began on Dec 27, has often kept me from the computer. Facial numbness comes when I sit upright and a wiggling internal tremor often comes when I sit with mouse in hand, my very solace from the mean disease stolen from me.

Lhermittes sign is a constant companion, an annoying reminder with every forward movement of my head. Sometimes in a moment of laughter or a moment of quiet, I might forget for a split second that my body is no longer mine. Then in an instant, the MS shouts back at me with the strange warm sensation that shoots down my right leg.

Last night, DH and I went to a restaurant on the outskirts of Cleveland by the name of Abuelos. I have decided to let the She-Neuro know that if she has other patients who are suffering from facial numbness, she can send them to Abuelos and tell them to order the Sangria Swirl. Once they have a Sangria Swirl, they won't really notice if their head is numb! Hmmmm, I could use one right now! It is now 4:00 AM. Sleep won't come...