Wide awake

Image
  • Wide awake
    Wide awake
Body

Monday afternoon, my nose was running like a candidate for public office.

That and the sneezing fit that came later meant one thing: allergy attack.

That happens this time of year, what with ragweed and dust making their annual statements.

So, I popped a Diphenhydramine and waited for it to kick in.

An hour later, I was dried up but yawning behind my mask at the school board meeting.

Diphenhydramine has that effect on me.

Once I was home and the recommended dosing time had expired, I was wide awake and alert but the allergy symptoms were coming back. So I took another pill and soon found myself stretched out on the bed, asleep.

One of the things I have discovered about becoming less young is that I don’t sleep as well as I used to.

As an 18-year-old in Army basic training, for example, I could sleep for nine minutes of a 10-minute break from marching.

They had shallow ditches along the roads at Fort Polk and I discovered that an Army backpack was the perfect size and shape to fill the ditch and make a more or less comfortable place to nap.

So, when the order came to fall out, I did, literally. I could be asleep in a minute and cop a good nap with my M16 cradled against my chest. When the break was over, the noise from the other soldiers would wake me up.

Off I’d go, refreshed and ready to pound some more ground.

Those days are long gone.

I started using a C-PAP machine a few years ago and deeply appreciate it. Without it, I can’t sleep for five minutes without snoring and gasping for air and waking myself up.

And last spring, I went through a month where I would wake up at 2 a.m., almost like there was an internal alarm clock going off in the back of my head. Once awake, there was no going back to sleep.

I’d get up, get a drink of water, check my email, write a column, fume about the COVID-19 virus, pet the dogs and rue the sleepiness I knew would overtake me the next day.

About the same time, I was dealing with allergies due mostly to tree pollen.

Each night, I would take a Diphenhydramine, figuring it would drowse me out and ward off the allergy symptoms. It worked well, and I congratulated myself for thinking of it.

Through the summer, I found myself sleeping all night except for those C-PAP-related awakenings.

At 2:35 a.m. Tuesday, the alarm clock in the back of my head that I hadn’t heard since April went off again.

I woke up wired. I read, took a shower, petted the dogs, got a drink of water and suddenly realized the common denominator in this equation: Diphenhydramine.

Ha! It definitely dries me up and puts me to sleep, but boy. Once its four-hour tour of duty is over, it’s over.

It leaves me wired for hours, but now I know not to take it at night.