Is sleep overrated?

Fall is here. The evidence is all around me - cooler days, the sun setting earlier than last month, pumpkins appearing on porches, ragweed blooming, and leaves blowing about the yard.

I have always liked the Fall season, mainly because Halloween and Thanksgiving are such fun holidays. Due to my fibromyalgia those holidays weren't as fun last year. My foot was in a walking boot due to plantar fasciitis. Wearing the boot threw my body into some odd position that seemed to aggravate my back and legs (I also have scoliosis), so I didn't sleep well due to the pain. Not sleeping led to massive fatigue. As usual, it started a vicious cycle.

I remember going to my doctor's office on a weekly basis complaining of fatigue. The first week he said it might be due to the blood pressure medicine I had just started for PACs, or the fact that I quit caffeine as the cardiologist suggested. I stopped the blood pressure medicine. The next week he said fatigue might be caused by low vitamin B12 or swollen sinuses due to ragweed; we tried B12 injection and steroids. The third week I went in crying, telling him that I was totally exhausted from head to toe, so fatigued that I couldn't lift my head off the pillow, yet in pain and couldn't sleep more than an hour  a few times a night. Going to work each day was draining the life from me. He did blood work to "See what was wrong". He called me the next day to say my blood work was fine and started me on Ambien.

At first Ambien was a godsend. I was able to sleep. Instead of being fatigued constantly, I was just a little groggy and tired the next day. I noticed I did not recall dreams while on it, and I awoke in the exact same position I collapse in. Then as winter approached I realized that I didn't remember what happened in the evenings at home - entire movies watched with the family erased from my mind, meals that we had eaten forgotten. The edges of my ambien nights, mornings and evenings, were a blur. I was only truly awake from noon to 8PM. As one can imagine, I soon became a zombie. I moved through the mornings and evenings with no awareness, clarity, or memory of the day.

I don't know how to explain it, but even though ambien made me lose track of part of my life, i was afraid to stop it. At least I had half a day. Before ambien I was so fatigued that I didn't really have a day. So stayed in it and lived the mechanical zombie life until my doctor suggested I see a specialist.

When I finally saw a rheumatologist, he asked me to stop ambien and try trazadone at bedtime. The switch made an instantaneous difference. I awoke refreshed and felt like I had slept for the first time in a year! I started recalling evenings and mornings. I got my life back.

As I watch the leaves fall outside my window today, I think of last fall, and how I missed so many months of last year while living in the constant zombie-like state of fatigue. Sleep is not overrated. It is necessary for life. Sorry Bon Jovi, it makes a great song (I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead), but in reality not sleeping turned me into the living dead.

I cringe when I hear people casually toss around the word "fatigue". A friend mentioned that she was fatigued from all the concerts and activities she attended over the weekend. She remembers what she did the night before, this morning, and over the weekend, her eyes are not sunken into her skull, her face doesn't look hollow. She is "tired", but not "fatigued".

Perhaps only someone who has experienced the life-sucking power of fatigue can understand the difference. I think I will sit here with my cup of decaf and watch the pretty colored leaves fall off the trees, and remind myself to be thankful later today when I am able to remember what I did this morning.