Insomnia. I Thought I Knew Who You Were. Until Now...

For 5 days, I was running on an average of 2 hours of sleep each night. Not fun with a spunky 18 month old taking every ounce of my energy. I am so grateful for my amazing family and friends who stepped up to help and encouraged me so that satan could not have His way in me!  I had people praying for me to sleep, to have the strength I needed, and my God heard my cry and the cries of my family.

Oh, so badly did I want to give up on myself. I was so close some days and nights. 

Christ and his delivering power, reminded me, through little glimpses of hope that came through the exhaustion and pain, that this will not take me!

I need to be honest here. I need to share the truth of my hurt. Maybe not for any one else but myself. You see, I feel that people have these ideas that when your a follower of Christ, and He lives in you, you have it all together. No. I don't have it all together, that is exactly why I need Him living in me:

because I can't do it myself!

 
When you go that long without getting adequate sleep, your mind goes places that it has never gone before. At times, I literally thought I was going insane. I could sugar coat how it was for me during that time, but I am choosing to be honest so you get a feel for what it is like for someone who may be suffering with insomnia. Also, because I want you to know just how God can take such a desparate person and bring them out of overwhelming despair. 

During these nights I was tempted was tempted to end it all. Tempted to ingest my whole bottle of ambien. Tempted to hurt myself, and tempted to leave those I knew. No one deserved to "deal" with me.  

Feelings of, "my family doesn't deserve this," "I just want to go away." The voice of satan was taking over my thoughts. 

I was feeling helpless and hopeless. 

My days and nights were so incredibly long and exhausting. 

Jared, the wonderful husband he is, spent about a month (or longer) on the couch, giving me a better chance to sleep without being disturbed.

You see, I have always had trouble sleeping. But this, this was beyond that. I tried to pin it on my meds, but I was only on 10mg of prednisone and was sleeping worse than I had on 60mg! 

What was going on?

I remember telling my mother-in-love that I felt like I had this block in my brain. It was blocking me from getting to that wonderful place; sleep. 

No matter what I did I couldn't get past it. My nights usually consisted of falling asleep between 10 and 11 and waking up around 1 or 2am. Some nights, I would take a bath, try reading my bible, I would put soft praise music on and sometimes try singing myself to sleep. The list goes on and on. 

Nothing was working. 

After looking at the clock every hour and getting so frustrated, I would cry out to God. Oh, and I was pretty angry with Him. I would sit up in bed, and cry, "why, why, why!?!" I remember a couple nights becoming hysterical. 

I was out of control. 

I would make my way downstairs some nights because I started to hate my bed. The thought of being in it any longer, awake, made me sick. I would sprawl out face down on the living room floor and sob. The numbing feeling that was taking over my mind and body seemed irreversible. I felt like I was losing it. Well, I was.

Jared would lay down with me during these times or just hold me,  as I curled up into the fetal position with uncontrollable emotion. When I was finally able to speak, I would tell him how this was going to kill me. I couldn't do it anymore. He comforted me and prayed over me. And that was all he needed to do. 

I ended up calling my doctor to see about getting something to help me sleep. He prescribed Ambien 5-10mg for me to take. I was excited, but frustrated that I was resorting to sleeping meds. I was so desperate at this point. 

I took the 10mg, hoping to sleep for a good 8 hours, (like the bottle says), only to find out that the stuff didn't touch me!! WHAT?!? Now THAT was a bad night. After taking the pills and then waking up after 2 hours of sleep! I was mad. Mad at myself, mad at God. How was this not working?!? If this wasn't, would anything?

There were days when my mom would come over and take Elin to her house so I could sleep. Even with a quite house, nothing to interrupt me and going on one or two hours of sleep, I STILL DID NOT SLEEP. How does that happen you may ask? I have no idea. I was beyond mad at myself (and God).

I decided to try going somewhere else to try and sleep. So I called my mother-in-love and asked her if I could try sleeping in their basement for the day. I went over around 10:00am and went down into the nice, dark, completely quite, comfortable basement. I laid in that bed until 3:00pm, never falling asleep. Are you kidding me!? That was on a Friday. We always go over to my parents for Friday pizza night and I didn't want to go. I remember not wanting to go anywhere that week. I hated the fact that I felt so miserable and I knew that I could not hide it. I didn't want my family to hurt how I was hurting. I knew I had to go. (That was God). I was scared of myself and what I may do. 

That weekend, after that horrific week,  

     sleep finally came. 

Just enough. But it came.

Thank you Jesus!


Last week, when I started writing this post, I was on my way to my doctors appointment. I was listening to the radio and a song by Green Day came on. Ok, I'll be honest, I like Green Day :X It kind of takes me back to my "high-school-wanna-be-rebellious" days.

Anyway, I was jammin' along to this song and actually heard what they were saying. You know, back then, I would say to my mom, "common' mom, I'm not listening to the words, I just like the beat!" Well, it must have been true because, I have heard this song many times and just now have I realized what the song is about!  

As I heard the words being sung, it was a true reflection of those awful, sleepless nights. By the way, I really hate this song now! :)

"Brain Stew"  

by Green Day

I'm having trouble trying to sleep

I'm counting sheep but running out

As time ticks by

And still I try

No rest for crosstops in my mind

On my own... here we go

My eyes feel like they're gonna bleed

Dried up and bulging out my skull

My mouth is dry

My face is numb

Messed up and spun out in my room

On my own... here we go

My mind is set on overdrive

The clock is laughing in my face

A crooked spine

My sense's dulled

Passed the point of delirium

On my own... here we go

I still don't quite understand why I went through that time. But praise God I am no longer there. He DID answer my prayer. At that time, I may not have seen it, but He did. For starters, I didn't up and leave my family, I am still alive, and my husband didn't need to take me to a psychiatric facility. He gave me the strength I needed to make it through. 

One of the things that helped me sleep was that I decided I was just going to stop TRYING to sleep. I almost expected not to sleep each night and nap time. Call it reverse psychology I guess. It started working. I'll be honest, I kind of had an attitude with God. You probably shouldn't have an attitude with God, but I was pretty frustrated with Him. I looked at Him a bit like I do with my earthly dad. There are times when I'm mad at my dad,

but ultimately, I know he has what's best for me in mind and that he loves me regardless. 

I basically said to Him, "Fine, don't let me sleep, I am so sick of trying. But...you have to give me the energy I need to get through the day and take care of Elin!"

A friend of mine, who has been a strong mentor for me sent me a note that helped support my change in thinking. Here is a bit of what she wrote: 
 

As I had those sleepless times, God reminded me that just as He doesn't need money (the obvious) to provide for our needs - sometimes He uses people or many other ways; He didn't need to give me sleep to give me the strength and rest I needed. 

He wanted me to surrender to the fact that He could give me stamina, strength, sanity, energy and sustain me with or without sleep. 

 It was an amazing time, albeit difficult time, of learning to lean on Him and surrender more and more to Him. But as I surrendered to the fact that I didn't need sleep to sustain (understanding that with a human body we need sleep, but understanding that our God is so much bigger and can sustain us either way), an amazing peace came, and eventually a stronghold was broken. 

Each day I would get up and say Ok, God, You know You have to sustain me, I didn't sleep and I know You can do it and You are the only way I'm going to even begin to be able to function today - so it's all on You, please do this thing! And I would start getting to the end of the days and be like, wow, how did He do that. And in that surrender the peace that came, and the supernatural sustaining amazed me. I've never looked at it the same. I'm not trying to make light of your struggle at all - trust me - it's aweful (and I don't know about you, but typically my body requires a good amt of sleep-but God used this as one more realization for me that the physical always facilitates the spiritual - and God is not bound by our humanness- praise His name for that- He can do whatever He wants, however He wants!) And I know as hard as this is right now, you WILL see blessings that came through this time. He IS working and loves you more than you can imagine! 

I feel that would be the EXACT note I would send to someone else struggling with insomnia right now!

GOD IS GOOD!

That horrific time was about 2 months ago. I am still struggling with my sleep. However, I am now able to get anywhere from 5-7 hours. Which is GREAT! I long for the day when I can sleep a straight 5 or 6 hours and not wake up. I know it will come. Just as God healed my kidneys, I know He can heal me from my sleep issues. He kinda already has if you think about it! I could still be in that dark place right now.

As for that silly Green Day song? I don't think I EVER want to hear that song again! Nothing needs to take me back to that place where I was, "past the point of delirium."  

I can't even begin to think about having to go through what I did without Him. He is my only source of strength and stability. That was a dark, hurtful place where I was. I was stuck and He pulled me out, just as He always does. 

Give Him your hurts. Let Him pull you out. He loves you regardless, and wants you to be free!

Lupus? What The Heck Is That Anyway? Part 8

After getting the call from the nephrologist, and knowing that I now had a diagnosis of lupus nephritis, I knew I would be having IV steroid treatments x3 days and then starting a dose of 60mg of Prednisone PO daily. I quickly explained everything to Jared then went upstairs to get all of my medical nursing textbooks out, turning straight to the lupus page. As soon as I got to those pages, I started to remember the studying, highlighting, and rewriting notes on this subject just 3 years ago. As I was scanning through the pages, I remember stopping, looking up from the book and thinking, 'wow, never did I think while studying this in school I would actually be diagnosed and learning it all again for myself!'
 

Here is some information on lupus for those of you who may not understand the disease well. These are taken from WebMD. A great source that explains things pretty easily, without a lot of medical terminology.

What is systemic lupus erythematosus, or lupus?

Lupus is an autoimmune disease, which means that the body's natural defense system (immune system) attacks its own tissues instead of attacking foreign substances like bacteria and viruses. This causes inflammation. Inflammation causes swelling, pain, and tissue damage throughout the body. If you develop severe lupus, you may have problems with your kidneys, heart, lungs, nervous system, or blood cells. Lupus is the common name for systemic lupus erythematosus, also called SLE.

Although some people with lupus have only mild symptoms, the disease is lifelong and can become severe.

This topic focuses on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the most common and most serious type of lupus. But there are four other types of lupus: discoid or cutaneous lupus, drug-induced systemic lupus, neonatal lupus, and subacute cutaneous lupus.Source

Like you see above, there are different types of lupus. I was diagnosed with SLE. This form of lupus can affect any organ in the body. Lupus nephritis was the more specific diagnosis I was given because the lupus choose to attack my kidneys at that time. Joint pain is a major symptom in lupus patients. I experienced that pain in December. Along with an elevated ANA, and later, a confirmed diagnosis with an elevated double strand DNA and titer, these factors together helped the doctors make the diagnosis of lupus.

Lupus Nephritis

Lupus nephritis is inflammation of the kidney that is caused by systemic lupus erythematous (SLE). Also called lupus, SLE is an autoimmune. With lupus, the body's immune system targets its own body tissues. Lupus nephritis happens when lupus involves the kidneys.

An estimated one-third to one-half of lupus patients develop lupus nephritis within the first six months to three years of their lupus diagnosis. When the kidneys are inflamed, they can't function normally and can leak protein. If not controlled, lupus nephritis can lead to kidney failure.Source


I went over to my parents that night, textbooks in hand, and educated my family a little. I was glad to finally have a diagnosis that I could at least study up on and learn more about. 

Here is a neat chart on lupus. Click on the source for a better look:

Source

Because I was forced to research lupus, I told some of the girls at work that I felt like I was going back to nursing school, obtaining a masters degree in lupus!

That Friday, I would make my way to the hospital to begin my IV steroid treatments. I was praising God that I did not have to be admitted for 3 days when I really didn't need to be!