Waiting for Morpheus

One of the issues with CRPS is that it severely disrupts sleep. I’ve spent hours lying in bed racked in pain trying to sleep to no avail. These hours of darkness, when spent alone with thoughts darker than the darkest night, are the hardest to endure.

Recently one of our cats has taken to joining me in the early hours. He too knows what it is to suffer, having lost a front leg several years ago. I sometimes wonder if he gets as much comfort from me as I get from him in the early hours.

In order to improve my chances of establishing a sleep routine, I am now staying up until 03:00 hrs before retiring. I have found that this is giving me a reasonably consistent three or four hours which is a significant improvement on where I was. One of the benefits of this is that when the pain allows I am able to write. This is my latest poem;

Waiting for Morpheus

I lie in the dark, waiting.
Time passes unmeasured,
and here in the pitch black silence,
I wait and wait and wait.

The body craves sleep,
Yet pain forces it away,
and here in the inky black silence,
I wait and wait and wait.

Rapid thuds of paws on carpet,
the cat lands beside me.
and here in the jet black silence,
I wait and wait and wait.

He gently butts me with his head,
then curls in a ball beside me.
Here in the velvet black silence
We wait and wait and wait.

He snuggles in tight,
then begins to snore.
Leaving me to fight black thoughts
as I wait for the arms of Morpheus.

John Carré Buchanan
10 January 2012

Morning

Last night was one of those nights when there was a price to pay for my doing something I wanted to do rather than doing what I should have done during the day. My last post discussed how I had planned for the resultant Flare Up.

As expected the night was not too pleasant and I spent most of it using mind games to keep myself from cracking up. This shows how effective mind games can be in dealing with chronic pain. It must be stressed that they do not stop the pain, but they do stop depression and by so doing they also stop irrational behaviour.

Morning

In the distance an alarm clock sounds briefly
beep – beep; beep – beep.
Relief floods in as another night draws to a close.
In the kitchen slippers scuff the tiles.
A click heralds the soft purr of the kettle warming.
Soft footfall draws nearer.
The rattle of the doorknob heralds the light beam
as the door swings open.
Her face peers into the gloom,
their eyes meet with clear understanding;
another sleepless night.
She crosses the room and opens the curtains
and the last demon flees.
Now he is safe,
racked in pain with the familiar taste of vomit in his mouth;
but safe.
The fear of acting on his thoughts conquered.
The desire to end all, silenced for another day.
For in the lonely hours, wrapped in pain
curled in a foetal ball, he had wept
tears mingling with sweat on the sheets,
face contorted with the silent screams
as the body spasmed time and time again
and the mind fought itself to a standstill.
He’d applied the technique to his thought.
Demons had hurled the seeds of doubt,
and stabbed deep, the knives of harm and hurt
his guardian had ‘challenged’, ‘normalised’….
...... Oh buzz words be dammed.
His guardian had fought, fought all night,
using every ounce of strength and he had won,
but now he had to face it all again.
They'd talk about it later, analyse it and improve.
He glanced at his watch, took the morning meds
and lay back to wait for the calm;
the calm before the storm, that was another day.

John Carré Buchanan
14 November 2011

Prayer of the Insomniac

Image Source:

I have great difficulty establishing a sleep pattern. I regularly go for between 3 and 5 days with no sleep, or crash out for 24 hours. I have tried all the ideas covered by health professionals; no caffeine, routine, no excitement before bed, limit TV before bed, relaxation etc. I have done my own research into the subject during which I found the blog from which the image above came, but all to no avail. Uunfortunately when my leg is hurting 8+/10 and I can't escape the pain I still end up with my eyes looking and feeling like the one above. On one such night I penned this little poem and as I am currently awake at 04:30 I thought it was appropriate to post it.

Prayer of the Insomniac

Darkness engulfs all
yet sleep eludes me yet again.
Nothing can sooth the ache which consumes me.
The darkness creeps inside.
Let me sleep and not wake.

John Carré Buchanan
02 August 2011