The logistics of siege centers on the marshalling and rationing of resources. Time and energy become commodities. In the calculus of caregiving, each earns its own spot market where futures are traded and options bought and sold as they compete in a zero-sum game.
In this realm, sleep is the fundamental currency of exchange. Like a soldier, I know my duties must be performed regardless of fatigue. Enemies, like infants, rarely schedule their activities during convenient daylight hours. That is the first lesson every recruit in every military is taught the first day of training, one every mother learns without instruction.
Sleep changes during crises. Subconscious filters engage separating need from distraction. My ward stirring rouses me where the music from an errant alarm has not. Her rising to silence it snaps me awake wondering what is wrong while my dreamy consciousness thinks, oh, music, how pleasant, never connecting the two events. A gasp of pain after midnight from the drain biting has me instantly alert and on the move, unable to sleep again until her pain has been relieved and her breathing steadies and deepens. Only then do I feel it's safe to drift again.
I become a thief, a corporate raider, as sleep becomes a stolen treasure. Afternoon, evening, morning, night, none better than the other once the siege begins. Chair, floor, car, bed, like a world traveler, I improvise with what's at hand. Waiting room and bedroom become interchangeable. Like a cat, I squander no opportunity. Time has no meaning except in terms of hours of energy remaining and hours of reserves replenished, a running tally fluctuating from day to day like the index of a stock.
When sleep closes low, fatigue flows over my thoughts like molasses, slowing them, obscuring them, pulling them down toward slumber. I must not let it until the job is done. Each action is taken carefully; frustration is magnified by exhaustion. Like a veteran, I understand my duty must be performed regardless of distraction. Heat, cold, fatigue, darkness, none may interfere.
On the eve of each procedure, my mind races through minutes into hours, running through preparations like a mantra, a compulsive checking and rechecking of lists until my consciousness becomes bored by the repetition and sleep nuzzles in until the alarm sounds too early.
In time of war, human sentries stand watch regardless of how many clockwork sentinels and tripwires lay beyond the wall. Vigilant, I sleep with one eye open, the other dreaming of a happier, more restful future.
© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III
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The past couple Saturdays, I’ve seen a friend of mine caring for his father while his mother is out of town. His father requires constant watching though not quite constant care. I think my friend’s been averaging maybe half the amount of sleep he normally gets, if he’s lucky.
Witnessing that reminded me so much of this experience. I was fortunate that Karen needed neither constant care nor watching. She is strongly independent so wanted to help whenever she could, even at times when I didn’t necessarily think she should.
But that didn’t mean that I didn’t try to keep a constant eye on her, not knowing quite what to expect. I was ready to drop everything if I needed to at any moment. If I heard her moan or thrash at night, I was awake, trying to determine what, if anything, I could do. Days were much the same way. I’d do what I needed to for her until she ran out of gas and fell asleep (until the surgeries and chemo, she’d never really taken naps, and hasn’t often since). Then I’d try to catch up on the things I needed to do alone. Occasionally, I’d catch a nap. But in general, I spent months running on short sleep.
Like a soldier, I’d learned early in life is to catch extra sleep whenever I had the opportunity. You never know when you’ll come up short and want wish you’d taken that extra hour when you had the chance. Another lesson that has served me well.
Picture notes: One of our alarm clocks with an overlay of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from September 29, 2008, when it dropped 777 points. That pretty much covers how my sleep index crashed in early in 2007.
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