I’ve been away for a while.

I’ve been busy caregiving for my disabled partner, who nearly died last March.
Over the past year, I haven’t gotten much sleep – she’s needed ’round-the-clock care, which means I’ve been up and awake each night, every 30 – 90 minutes. I think the longest I’ve slept at a stretch has been maybe 2.5 hours, when I was taking care of her.
Friends and other caregivers have come intermittently to provide respite. Getting a full 8 hours (plus) is magical. That happens between 1-3 times a week. 3 is rare. It’s if I’m lucky.
And people love to tell me all about how detrimental sleep deprivation is to your system. No shit. It’s classified as a war crime for prisoners of war. That’s pretty much what I’ve been – a prisoner of war, since a whole shitload of WWII trauma from her father is behind what caused this whole health crisis.
It’s going on a year, now, since this started. It’s old. I’m worn. And nobody better tell me about how much the body needs sleep – unless they can come to my fucking house and stay up all night with this woman, so I can sleep – and work full-time every day of the work week, which I do.
Anybody who comments here about how much I need sleep is getting their comment removed. I already fucking know it.
But you learn a whole lot, when you’re crushed into small pieces, shaken up, and coughed up again by life.
Here’s a short list of the first ten lessons that come to mind:
- I’m a killer wound nurse. Her wounds on her feet are healing at record speed. The doctors can’t believe it.
- Edema sucks. It also smells, when it weeps.
- I haven’t lost my sense of smell to COVID, because I can tell when her edema is bad by the smell of it.
- It’s possible to exist on six or seven 45-minute sleeps each night. It’s no fucking fun, but it can be done.
- I hate my fucking job with a passion.
- I hate a lot of shit with a passion.
- What I hate doesn’t make any difference. It’s still there, and I still need to deal with it.
- Rage and disgust are fantastic sources of energy. They never run out with me, and if I can direct them in the right way, I can get more shit done than you’d believe.
- Nobody believes how much you can do in life, because most of them are too lazy or scared to push that hard.
- David Goggins is right about a lot of things. And I’d give money to see him try living my life for a year. Would love to see how he handles pushing hard, going HARD, all day and all night, without any recovery time.
There are more – many more – lessons I’ve learned. Mainly, that this shit is not a “marathon” like some people say. It’s much, much more.