Sleepless In North Carolina

One of my presents this past Christmas was a new FitBit.  One of those fancy-fangled ones that tracks not only your daily steps and activity, but also your sleep.  After wearing this gizmo for almost 2 months, I have come to one obvious conclusion:

I stink at sleeping.

It's true.  The numbers don't lie.  Just take a peek at this example of my sleep stats.

The dark blue thin lines are my "sleep" periods for each night.  The light blue is restless sleep.  Red is wakefulness.  All that light blue is just crazy! !  You can even see nights when my sleep is divided into two sets of stats. Apparently because I was awake long enough for it to be considered two separate sleep periods.

YIKES!!

Sooo...  I am now on a mission for better, more restful sleep.  Reading up on good sleep habits.  Pinning lots of things to my new "Sleepytime" Pinterest board .  Soon, I hope to have a post for you all about some of the best hints I have found for getting a good night's sleep.

In the meanwhile, what are some of your tips for getting better sleep? Let us know in the comments.

You can find me connecting at these Blog Hops and Link Ups

Three O'Clock in the Morning

I can't figure out what is going on with me and 3am!

First - I woke up at 3am sure someone was moving around and making noise in the male offspring's room.  Wondering what in the world he was doing at that time of night, I got up and went to check on him.  Both he and the dog were sound asleep.  Um... OK. Back to bed, where it took me forever to fall back asleep.

Then -  I woke up around 3am convinced I was smelling toast.  So sure, I got up to see who was making toast at that time of night.  The kitchen was empty.  The toaster oven was off.  And cool.  No one had been toasting bread of any sort.  Um... OK.  Back to bed, where I lay awake slowly taking inventory for any symptoms of a stroke.

Last night, I woke up about 3am absolutely sure that either a) the alarm hadn't gone off and we were oversleeping.  Or b) the alarm was about to go off any moment.  Of course, neither was correct.  Unfortunately, it messed up my sleep for the rest of the night because I kept waking up anticipating the alarm.

The hypochondriac in me is convinced that something is misfiring somewhere in my brain at three in the mornings.  The normal (?) part of me just wants to sleep through a night without having to get up at 3am for some reason.

Long Night

My cat was vomiting.  Now, if you have cats you know that sometimes they vomit.  They eat too much, or too fast, or they decide to sample the dog food, or they spent time outside chewing on some nice fresh grass, or they get a hairball, or ... whatever.  It happens.  It's gross.  I grumble about cleaning it up.  But it's over and done.

This time it wasn't over and done. 

The vomiting very quickly escalated to panting, excessive drooling, loss of bladder control, loss of coordination which affected his ability to walk, and what can only be described as a convulsion of some sort.  He was bad off.  Very bad.

The Man of the House - always my own personal knight in shining armor - took over,  made a phone call to the emergency pet hospital, and hustled us into the car and off into the night to seek care for the poor feline. 

After an evaluation, some blood work, and 2 hours at the pet ER the knew he had likely been exposed to some sort of toxin, but were not able to determine what sort.  He was given activated charcoal, IV fluids, oxygen, and spent the night at the emergency vet

This morning I picked him up from the emergency vet and transferred him to his regular vet.  He was able to come off the oxygen at about 3am, but his breathing is still labored.  He has shown a little improvement, but is still in critical condition.

Right now, I wait for his Vet to call me with an update and recommendations.  And I worry.