Being Tired

It's late Sunday morning. Mom is napping, so I get a chance for what I hope to be a once-a-week blog. I'm tired. Jeanne and I are tired all the time. Though Mom goes to bed early--around 7:00--we don't eat supper until she's in bed. We watch maybe an hour of tv, then clean up, take Cleo out one last time, and try to be in bed between 9 & 10. Last night we rented Changeling, which at 140 minutes, kept us up later than usual.

Every night we get up sometime between 1 & 3 a.m. in order to change and toilet Mom. Even with the super-duper Depends we rig up for her, if we don't change her once a night, she and the bed will be soaked by the morning. This process usually takes a half hour, and then we often end up talking before going back to sleep. It's one of the few times we're not doing something else, and besides, there just always seems to be more to talk about at 2 a.m. than at 2 p.m.

So last night we talked for another hour after taking care of Mom. Then I went right back to sleep, as usual; it's never that easy for Jeanne. On the weekends, instead of getting up at 6, as we do during the week, we sleep in until sometime between 7 & 8. We skip our showers, and just go downstairs and get Mom up.

This nightly sleep interruption takes a toll on us. The reason I chose this topic to write on today is because here it is, the middle of the day, and I just want to rest my head, which feels like it weighs 40 pounds. Today we'll have time to take a nap later, but napping when Mom does means not getting our own work or leisure done during that time. When she's awake, we're feeding her or toileting her or trying to keep her awake so she'll sleep at night. There's always a trade-off. Simply put, caregiving means never getting enough sleep.

And while that's true for parents of infants as well, slowly that continues to improve. As the child grows, so does hope that a full night's sleep will one day be possible. For me, I can only hope for a full night's sleep for those few days a month we put her in respite care (temporary nursing home care), and when she dies. It will not get better before then.

And now it's time to get Mom up from her nap.