Floating

I feel a bit like I'm floating right now. Not the happy Cloud 9 floating that everybody talks about... this is more like an "in limbo" floating. It's a bit odd.

Right this moment, I should not, by any means, be awake. I should not have the least bit of consciousness. From when I woke up Saturday morning until now, I've had a total of right around 9 hours of sleep... all of it restless, waking constantly, tossing and turning. Basically useless sleep. Yesterday, I was running on mostly adrenaline. Today, I woke myself with coffee which would easily be mistaken for tar. I'm sure that kept me going most of the day. The rest of the day, I've had to keep myself moving. Do a few pull-ups... pace around the house... move some things around... clean, go shopping, whatever. I just spent most of the past 3 hours in the kitchen, cooking. I made a pizza from scratch, each piece of it, from the dough itself, to the hamburger and other toppings. Even the pizza sauce was cooked during all of this. Not only that, I made enough dough for a second pizza, which is now in the freezer... and I took the leftover hamburger that I cooked up and turned it into a mini stir fry of sorts (which would work wonderfully for some fajitas, I must say.) Regardless, my point is, I kept myself running around the kitchen all that time in order to just keep myself going. As soon as I sat down to enjoy the fruits of my labor, I could feel the energy draining from my body. The only problem is, now that I want to go to sleep, I find myself unable to again.

It's an odd thing, being unable to sleep, when you feel exhausted enough to sleep for two days straight. I've never had a problem with insomnia before, but I certainly feel sorry now for people who suffer this chronically. I don't know what it is, really, that's keeping me awake. It could very well be stress. Stress over my cancer... over whether I get radiation in the morning or not. Stress over work... whether I will be able to live up to my word and meet the deadlines that have been set, despite the fact that I can hardly keep myself focused on one thing right now. Writing seems easier to focus on, but this is just a pouring out of my thoughts. I'm not having to think through every possible scenario that this writing could go through, like I have to when I'm writing code.

I think this whole radiation thing may really be getting to me. I'm chomping at the bit for this right now. I've been so freaked out over my diet, I've cut my iodine intake to practically nothing. I take no risks with what I eat. Aside from meals I have cooked myself, the only ones I have had were at my favorite bar, Boulders on Broadway, where they actually have my diet restrictions pinned up in back so that they can figure out things to make for me. I love those people, I really do. How many places would do something like that for just one patron? I can't personally think of any others. They even custom tailored a beer dinner for me. This was an event with around 40 people, eating dishes custom crafted to go with the particular beers that were being presented. Obviously, some of these things, I was unable to eat. Going above and beyond, they created a whole different menu for me to replace these things. This was something I never expected. In fact, I told them I wouldn't be able to attend because of my diet. They would have none of that talk. Obviously.

Possibly the biggest reason I'm still anxious about the radiation right now is that I still don't know if I'm going to be receiving it... and I'm scheduled for 11:00 tomorrow morning. This morning, I went in and got my blood drawn again for my final test. It was written specifically with orders to get the results immediately, by this afternoon. Of course, as has been the case lately, Murphy was lurking in the shadows. The machine which would analyze my blood for TSH levels was not working this morning. This means that they had to send my blood over to Sonora Quest Labs to get the results. Sonora Quest, however, was unable to get the results by this afternoon; they aren't ruled by my doctor's office... they have other orders to fill. Because of all this, my results were delayed until 8:00am tomorrow morning. Three hours before I'm supposed to get my radiation dose. The absolute drop dead cut-off point for my results is 9:00am in order for me to receive the dose at 11:00am.

Several people have suggested sleeping pills already, but honestly, I refuse. Maybe it's that I don't trust the pills. Or maybe it's that I don't trust myself with them. I don't really know... I don't think it really matters. Whatever the case, I won't be using them. I fully intend to simply let myself drift off to sleep in a natural fashion. How I'm going to accomplish that, I'm still not certain.

But I'm certainly going to try.