I wasn’t going to do a summary blog for this month.  I was thinking a ‘what I learned’ summation for the year as a whole in January would suffice.

But halfway through the month I have changed  my mind.  I am a woman so I can do that.  I wish I could say a menopausal woman but alas…

December 12th:  It has been a very unhappy start to the month.  My insomnia has gotten out of control.  After a complete meltdown concerning my son not doing a task by a set deadline I realized I needed to solve the sleep problem.   And if I couldn’t figure out how to get more sleep then I needed to make arrangements to slink off to a deserted mountain cabin until such time I could be civil to people again.

 My current insomnia type is the wake in the middle of the night variety.  I am pretty sure this is being caused by a mild hot flash.  The problem was, once awake I couldn’t get back to sleep anytime soon.  For a few nights I got up and wrapped Christmas presents which was actually kind of nice.  Very peaceful.

But then the sleep deprivation began to build and that led to pure misery.  Waking at 3:00a.m. meant it was too late to take something to help me get back to sleep.  I wanted to just start going to bed at 6:00p.m. but that doesn’t work for so many reasons.

Enter melatonin.  Of course I had heard of it but I didn’t realize I could take it long term and at a higher dosage.  Not only does it help you fall asleep but it helps you stay asleep and sleep deeper.  So I got a bottle of the 10mg dosage and started popping a pill at bedtime.  The first night I still woke up (twice I think) but I fell back asleep pretty quickly. Phew.

January 2: It was a pretty unhappy ending to the month with a few days in the middle that were bearable. Actually those days were around the 21st through Christmas. For most of the month I felt really tired, even when I did sleep and apathetic about pretty much everything, including celebrating the holidays. I muddled through in a most unsatisfactory way.

I had a fairly heavy period again in the middle of the month. Luckily the worst was over before our trip to Flagstaff. (the picture is of me attempting to tame a dinosaur at a park in Flagstaff) 🙂 I realized that the bad days are now out numbering the good and it is time to make some changes. Stay Tuned.