Back to basics

Wow. It has been far too long since I last blogged...I forgot how good it can feel to sit down and aimlessly write about the 57,146 things running through your mind at one time. So today, I'll start from the beginning.

-This week at Shriner's has started out well. My spanish is getting better and I have stopped being so sad for the children with burn injuries...
-I met two of the funniest surgical residents EVER and I'm glad that one can still be inappropriate, yet fun, at age 33 and poor.

Yesterday I came upon a blog called PostSecret (heard of it?) and the concept is pretty interesting...people can anonymously mail in their secrets on one side of a postcard and they are posted on a website for everyone and all to see. I love it. It's creative, it's therapeutic, and I wish I would have thought of it first. So in the honor of secrets, I want to confess one of my own. I am very aware that anything one puts on the Internet may end up absolutely anywhere...the Dean's office? My parents house? China?...so I'm going to begin with something that may not be boys' locker room worthy but is something that I don't share with everyone.

I'm an insomniac.

I think it began after my surgery. Not only was it next to impossible to sleep in my hospital bed in the almost-upright position, hardly able to move from one side to another without the help of a nurse or a best friend, but the pain was unbearable. If I recall, I spent my nights wishing I could take the surgery back, that I could transplant myself to another planet on another day in another year, or worse, that I wouldn't have been revived at all. The overwhelming feeling that I would never fully recover plagued me. Looking in the mirror at the staples in my chest made me cringe. One week was not nearly enough time to prepare for open heart surgery. But then again, one year would not have prepared me to be bare chest on an operating table with Dr. Dewan and the attractive male residents who would soon see my goodies. This was my welcome back present from England. I would have rather some new clothes and an American meal.

And then it started. Upon returning to my parents house for what was to be the most tiring 1.5 months of my life, I was stuck. Stuck in the fluffy lounge chair in the family room, stuck in my bed after my parents had already fallen asleep. I was stuck trying to close my eyes and relax when there was no relaxation in sight. The pain meds I was sent home with did not completely ease the pain I was feeling everywhere but they were pretty effective in the hallucination department. The intent was for me to be able to sleep in those moments of painlessness but instead, I sat or laid awake, seeing people and hearing things that only made me more afraid to close my eyes. So instead, I became accustomed to making plans, making lists, and making faces, all from my perch in bed. As it turned out, the medications I was taking were not in safe combination (hence my 15 pound weight loss during those 2 weeks) but even after my meds were changed, one million dollars and a Brad Pitt in my bed could not have made me sleep.

So here I am, almost 3 years later, and I still only average a few hours of sleep on most nights. On the positive, I have mastered the art of sticky note reminders (you know, the kind that you get up to write in the middle of the night). But thanks to my little bought with "bad trips," I have the most elaborate and realistic dreams EVER (to the point where I confuse dreams with reality at times) and I must say, it can be pretty entertaining. It also brought my relationships with my roommates to a whole new level, considering I slept with a few of them at different periods of time (i.e. Beth, Megan, and Karen)...although Karen had the misfortune of living with me during my sleep paralysis phase, and I'm sure that was not fun for her.

So there you have it, my confession of the day. Sure, I have many more (don't we all?) but for now, this is the most I can get on paper. One day I am sure I'll be confident enough to put everything out there for everyone to judge, but right now I am content with revealing one part of me at a time. And let me tell you, it has taken some work.