Colds, Sleep, Deer, and Thanksgiving

I spent the first part of this week down with a cold. “Cold” sounds so innocuous. As if I’m comfortably sitting in an easy chair wrapped in a quilt, sipping tea and enjoying a TV show; just resting until the little cold bug decides to leave. Nothing implies the stuffed sinuses, the pounding head out to here, the raw nose, the body aches, the raspy throat, the deep cough that’s bringing up a lung, and the bone-tiredness that all has to be ignored to care for a child. Can you spell M-o-m-m-y? Fortunately Cassie was tired and I was able to get her to bed at 8pm. My little night owl was actually asleep by 8:15pm.

Sleep. Not something I’ve been familiar with for over five years. Why in the world would menopause affect sleep? Sleep wasn’t affected at age 12 when it all began, doesn’t make sense for sleep to be affected at this end of things. Poor Cassie has never known her mom to be wide-awake, alert, and full of energy. But while taking my shoulder meds last week a wonderful side effect of the Gabapentin was sleep. It didn’t knock me out, but kept me asleep. Sadly, last Sunday was my first night without this wonder drug. And sure enough, I got three hours of sleep. Not even all together mind you but in one hour segments followed by two or three hours of lying awake. No wonder I catch every cold and virus that comes calling.

So I called my internist, Holly McMillan, and told her I’ve become accustomed now to sleeping through the night and wanted to continue doing so. She told me to keep taking the Gabapentin and call her in three months. But not to pull apart the capsules and dissolve them in a spoon like I had been doing (I can’t swallow pills). I can pull apart the capsules but should sprinkle it over applesauce. It takes me about an hour to get moving now in the mornings but happily I’m sleeping. Wonder how long it will take to get caught up?

Friday morning Cassie and I had breakfast at McDonald’s at 27th & “W” streets. As we turned into McDonald’s we saw a deer bound across 27th street, through the parking lot, across 26th street and wander around the yards of those houses. We lost sight of the deer between some of the houses. Cassie thought it was cool to see a deer but worried that Animal Control would kill it. I told her they would catch it and put it someplace safe.

She’s worried about animals now. Thursday night we had a discussion about where hamburgers come from. And sausage, and the pepperoni on her pizza, and steak, and bacon. She was quite horrified that we kill animals to eat them. To quote her, “Eyyew.” So I’m gonna have to work on a few vegetarian entrees. Wonder what she’ll think of Thanksgiving now?

Speaking of, Thanksgiving has caught me flat-footed. We always celebrate with my side of the family the weekend-before. I wasn’t prepared for that being NEXT WEEKEND!

Friday night Mark and Cassie met me at the library and we walked to Noodles for supper. Sitting at a table next to us was another family with an Asian daughter about Cassie's age. The girl took note of Cassie right away and kept looking over, smiling at us.

Then Mark went to work and Cassie and I went to Grma’s to work out Thanksgiving details. I have a lot of picking up to do before next weekend. Cassie informed me we could just hide everything in the big bedroom and shut the door! What a smart child.