There are some nights where it hardly pays to go to bed. I started my “repose” by taking a decongestant to kill the post-nasal drip. It did kill the drip, it also killed deep sleep. I’d lay there in bed thinking how hot it was and throwing off the covers and then wanting to snuggle up for sleep I’d pull them back on. Howard kept doing horrible things like rolling over in bed which woke me up.
Then Patches cried. Patches has been extruding slime from most of the orifaces in his head for days now. This has me pinning him down screaming while I remove the protective slimey coating with tissues. What with the slime I wasn’t surprised to hear him cry. So I went and got him and snuggled him into bed with me. Only Patches doesn’t snuggle, he sniggles. It’s halfway between a snuggle and a wiggle. He sniggled himself to sleep up above my head on my pillow pinning my arm underneath his lower half. Normally I can get sleep through this kind of thing, not with the Evil Decongestant though. As soon as he was solidly asleep, I carried him back to his crib.
I snuggled back into bed seeking more sleep. Then an uncertain amount of time later I heard shuffling steps run into the room and Gleek crashed into bed with me. She snuggled in til we were both comfy and then demanded a drink of water. I extricated myself, got the drink, came back only to have her lazily guesture that I should put it on the dresser in case she needed it. Grumbling I crawled back into bed and got comfy again. Comfy and HOT. Gleek was a little furnace. A furnace who demanded near total body contact. I snuggled her until she was drowsy and carried her back to her own bed.
The rest of the night gets kind of hazy. Link called me to get him a drink and to help find the stuffed toy that had gone missing since bedtime. Patches cried again, maybe twice, I’m not sure. Gleek called out for her water, I realized the furnace effect was because she had a fever, so I coaxed her (On threat of holding her down and forcing medecine down her throat) into drinking advil syrup as well. I think the Advil Syrup event was the final one because I don’t remember anything else until Howard got out of bed. Then nothing again until Howard called for help with the groceries that he was so wonderful as to get up early and go buy so I didn’t have to haul 4 kids to the store.
All in all, the only person in the house who DIDN’T wake me up last night was Howler. I find this highly amusing considering his name.
Dang. Which decongestant did you use? I take it that Nyquil has little effect on you – or the wrong one – given the wakefulness, which probably couldn’t have been helped with three kids being ill.
Then again, maybe I’ve been stealing sleep from other people, since I slept like a baby last night and the night before. Perhaps I should send some of it back over? 😀
Give me my sleep back!
I can’t do Nyquil precisely because it DOES knock me out. I can’t afford to be too drugged to respond to the children during the night. I was on sudafed.
Interesting …
that has the same effect on a good friend of mine — after ingestion, she is the poster child for hyperspeed recreational pharmaceuticals. It kicks her congestion, but leaves her both groggy and amped. She has learned not to go to work on days when she must medicate — it is a trainwreck waiting to happen . . .
Re: Interesting …
Groggy and amped is a very apt description.
Re: Interesting …
I know someone else who also has the same reaction to Sudafed. As a result, I don’t take it myself… which limits my options when I have a cold. Then again, I usually take the Nyquil knock-offs… which DON’T drug me out more than a bit, unhappily. Takes care of the dripping, but it doesn’t knock me out the way it does everyone else.
Muhahahaha! NEVER! 😉 This sleep is MINE!
But seriously – is this for allergies or colds? If you’re doing allergies, my personal recommendation is Claratin, which works wonders for those for about a day. It also doesn’t knock me out the way some of the other antihistamines do. If colds, I’d suggest the generic cold medication, or maybe Neo-Citran… which doesn’t do squat on the drip.
Incidentally, I didn’t sleep as well last night. Did you take it back, or something?
Yup. And I plan to keep it. Go steal someone else’s sleep. 😉
Heck. I presume you slept all the better for it too? Let’s see if DW’s using any of his sleep… or maybe Josh Phillips.