4:19 A.M

The title says it all. Here I am up at this time and I have been up about an hour already.

My trackball doesn’t seem to be connected to the computer. At least there is no cursor when I move the ball. Fortunately, I have a graphic pad also installed but I am used to using it and its stylus for only certain programs and accessing my mail and Open Diary are not usually two of them. It is not that it doesn’t work for these two programs but it is very odd to point to, say, the entry title block and then click at the top end of the “clicker” on the pen to activate double-click. I use the graphic pad for graphics, of course {primarily Paint Shop Pro 9} but it is also very easy to use in Bookworm DeLuxe. In fact, my brother-in-law who is a Bookworm addict and has Parkinsons can play much more easily with the graphics pen than with the mouse. When my sister got a new computer and he got the older one, she bought a new graphics pad for the new computer just so she could play Bookworm with it. I also play several versions of Solitaire and Zuma. However, although tecnically it works with Open Diary, later I will be clambering around under my desk and reinstalling the trackball! And if that  doesn’t work, out I go for a quick trip to Staples to get a new trackball.

This insomnia is partially due to the nap I took today but mostly it is due to the fact that Fred had to wake me up because the valve on his Foley catheter bag broke yet again when he was emptying it. Well, I should really say that he is very rough with these valves since this is the second one that has broken. Fortunately, the visiting nurse brought us a few extra. When it breaks, this means  he cannot open or close the valve and he needs someone to get him a new bag. I do not respond well to being woken from a deep sleep by someone shouting my name over and over! And now I am at the point where I am tired, I am yawning but thoughts are randomly swirling around in my head and I can’t sleep without a sleeping aid. However, if I take half a Klonopin now, it will knock me out for several hours. I am trying to keep as close to my normal {read “pre-Fred’s surgery and heart attack”} as I can. I feel this is the only way that I can survive all this extra stress.

When I was a teacher, I had this deliberately worked out technique for coping with the inevitable bee-stings, throwings-up, black eyes, and/or broken bones that came up at times. I was extremely calm and competent and coped superbly all the while knowing that once the crisis was over, I was free to find a quiet place, to fall apart and have either hysterics or a hissy-fit depending on what I needed. Well, this is how I am now. I am calm, and competent and I am coping really well. But, dammit! When can I fall apart? When can I have hysterics? 

It is true, however, that things are progressing well. Fred, by his own choice, is off oxygen {although we still have the damned stuff hanging around.} He is walking around the apartment without the walker {although he is a little unsteady} He  has asked for a physical therapist and is talking about getting strong enough to tackle the stairs. But there is still the Foley catheter and now he has pains in his feet that keep him awake unless he takes a Dilaudin! What is he going to do about the pain when he takes the last one? I don’t anticipate him being offered another prescription.

Oh, well, “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” and “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

I am going to try sleeping again…