To Bed, to Bed, Said Sleepyhead

I’m ready to get up.

I want to go to the toilet.

Can I have a drink of water?

What time is it?

I want to go to bed.

I want to sit up.

I need help.

Where is everyone?

I forgot.

I don’t know.

No, this is not a four-year old talking. These are the late night responses of my 98-year old mother after she has yelled for me in her barely-audible voice and I have stumbled out of bed and slid down a flight of stairs and steep wheel chair ramp in a sleepy haze to ask her, “What do you want, Mom?”

It would be funny. In another lifetime. If I wasn’t so-o-o-o tired. But that’s life around here these days and I don’t think it is going to change anytime soon. Mom has her days and nights mixed up and no matter what we do to try to fix it, I still come up short on sleep. It doesn’t seem to make much difference if Mom stays awake all day, or if she sleeps in a recliner instead of the bed, or if she takes Benedryl or another light medication recommended by Hospice that produces drowsiness as a side effect. Whatever Sundowner-type phenomenon thing is happening, this childish, illogical, sleep-challenged person that I am now sharing a bedroom with, is not my real mom during these nocturnal hours. I can’t reason, cajole, placate, demand, or even guilt her into lying still. She is absolutely driven into getting the covers off and spinning her body sideways on the bed every twenty minutes so that her legs drape off the edge before she determinedly starts screeching for help.

Of all the caregiving challenges we have faced so far, sleep deprivation has always been my nemesis; the more tired I get, the more impatient I become and that is not what I want to subject these people to, whom I love so much. So, I spend all my waking hours trying to come up with a better plan for the coming night and spend all my sleepless late night hours praying to get through this phase as calmly and quickly as possible. As I get ready for yet another long night, I try to remind myself that this, too, shall pass and I will look back with thankfulness that I had the opportunity to share the struggle with Mom and that we made it through.