So much to report on. Let me begin with Sunday, August 7th. Mark has never really been a good sleeper. So much so that he has anxiety about it and stresses about it ALL DAY. On Saturday night he didn't sleep well and was anxious all day on Sunday about not being able to fall asleep. So, he decided to take an Ambien. Now, I must preface this with a little history. There is a warning in the Ambien literature that states some people have a tendency to walk around, eat, and even try to drive, all while being in a drunken state, and then not remember anything about it the next day. We have experienced these happenings a time or two (Mark ran into the door a few years ago and wondered why his face was sore the next morning), but it's been so long since he's taken it that he wanted to give it another try. He took a half of the tablet and didn't feel anything. So an hour later he took the other half. And the games began. I couldn't get him to stay in the bed. He was stumbling around like he was drunk. And because of the head injury, I couldn't just let him do what he wanted. I had to stay with him at all times to prevent a fall and possible increased head injury. He would get really sleepy and try to lay down, but the left side of his body would constrict and wake him up. When I tell you that we were up ALL night, I mean ALL night. We didn't get ANY sleep. He ate 3 pints of Hagen Daaz, 7 popsicles, a plate of melted cheese, half a bag of Muncho's chips and half a bowl of Frosted Flakes. A lot of the ice cream melted and spilled into the bed, one of the popsicles melted onto his shirt, and I had to keep him from spilling his cereal all over because he wanted to walk around while he ate it. At one point he was in the living room opening and closing the drapes and he tried to go down the back stairs off the deck and nearly crashed through the sliding glass door. Needless to say...I was pooped from running that marathon. And his last seizure was partly caused from sleep deprivation, so I was a nervous wreck all night that at any moment he was going to start seizing. It was awful. And he doesn't remember ANY of it.
Whew...okay. Now onto Monday. When he finally "woke up" at 6:00, he wanted to go to Maverick to get a soda. We jumped in the car and went over in our pajamas. I didn't even care. I was still walking around with him because he still wasn't too sure on his feet. Then he started complaining that his back was killing him. So much so that he couldn't sit still. I thought it was because of the pain, but then I started to really watch him. He was somewhat okay while he was walking around, but the moment he sat down his whole body would twitch. And not just a little twitch....a full body spasm. We had to wait until Costco opened to get his pain prescription. Once the pain started to subside, he calmed down a little and was acting more like himself. At first I wondered if he was having withdrawal symptoms, but it had been over a week that he had been out of pain meds and he only takes one if he's absolutely dying. They have to dissolve under your tongue and evidently they are disgusting, so he only takes them if he has to. Anyway, I think that because his pain had subsided and the Ambien was out of his system, he could relax enough to go to sleep. I was worried about the spasms, so I made an appointment to see the Neurologist later that day. We both took a nap until it was time to go. The neurologist didn't seem too overly concerned. He said it could be pre-manifestation of seizure activity. Mark was on the lowest dose of anti-seizure meds, so he upped his dose and told me to watch him to see if there were any changes. He prescribed a muscle relaxer so that if he was having the muscle constrictions at night, he could take one and relax enough to get some sleep. We will NEVER take Ambien again.
So, things quieted down from there. He was working in the yard that evening while I was staring into space. I wonder if he was actually "sleeping" during some of that wandering around. I know I didn't get any sleep. It was awful and I don't EVER want to do it again. But I will say that it took him a few days to recover. He was really tired the next few days and didn't do much of anything. Almost to the point that we were going to cancel our camping trip. But I had taken 3 days off and wanted to get in a long pre-school "vacation" with our girls. So we did.
It was one of our best trips. The girls were kind of bored so we went to Ephraim to Walmart and bought some fishing gear. We took the girls to the lake and over the next 2 days they caught 5 fish. The only reason we didn't get more is because on Sunday a thunderstorm started rolling in. Mark went back to camp to get our jackets and came back with the little pop-up tent and some dry clothes. By the time he got the tent set up, the storm was upon us. After we piled inside with all of our gear, the hail started. It was LOUD! Madison and Avery were loving it....Olivia not so much. She sat in my lap and cried until it stopped. By then everything was wet, we were cold and it was time to go home. We had experienced a few "technical" problems with the trailer and truck this trip. Mark had fixed a water leak on the trailer and it succombed to the pressure. If we turned the water pump on, water would spray underneath the tub. The generators were running to charge the batteries and run the TV so the girls could watch a movie during the rain storm. But the batteries weren't charging. So Mark went out and investigated and found that the plug head on the trailer cord had melted. So he cut it off and hard wired it to the generator. Voila...the batteries were charging. Then, we tried to open the tailgate on the truck and the handle would go all the way up, but the gate wouldn't come down. So he took the handle apart and realized that one of the latches had come undone. He put it back together and ta da...the tailgate worked. It was at this point that we decided it might be time to pack up and go home before something SERIOUS broke and we couldn't fix it. I must say that I LOVE being married to a handy man. I swear this man can fix almost anything. And I am amazed now to watch him do a lot of the things he used to do. The human brain is truly a work of God.
Blessing of the Week: my eternal family
Missed you Scarlet. Glad you had a good time.
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