For the past three days I have been plagued by insomnia. This is not an unnatural event in my life, I have always been one of those who enjoy staying up late to ponder or simply waste time on meaningless activities. However, as I traverse the years, whether fortunately or unfortunately, I find that this is becoming somewhat of a bother. Not only is my rhythm disrupted but I find my work lacking a certain je ne sais quoi, and in a prison setting this can spell disaster. So today I decided to head to the physician, a curse of growing older and becoming a prudent adult. The visit was as mundane as can be expected save for the one thing for which I was ill-prepared.
Testing
A not uncommon occurance, I am told, when one visits the physic. I have had a love/hate relationship with doctors from an early age. It is not that I distrust those to whom I am essentially donating my livelihood, I have just seen far too many of them. As a child I was diagnosed epileptic, a bothersome pestilence that derailed my hopes of normalcy from the age of 11. During this time, I was poked, proded, studied, and classified by every doctor imaginable -- pediatricians, neurologists, diagnosticians, and many other specialists. I spent more time in hospitals doing tests than I spent in school. My parents had to beg my teachers and school officials to promote me as I missed nearly a third of a school year. The doctors never found a causation for this malady and 5 years after the seizures began, they inexplicably ceased to be. The only true answer I was ever given was that puberty overplayed its' part and caused a schism in my development, and that even though the seizing had quit I could relapse at any point further in my life.
A year after the epilepsy left my being, and in the midst of my breakout as a tennis player, I blew out both my MCLs on court and partially tore my right meniscus. More doctors, more time spent on my back eating crappy plastic-looking food. Luckily, my PT was fantastic and I recovered more rapidly than projected and was back to tennis and a normal routine in half the time. To be more correct I should say I recovered just in time, as three weeks after I got back in the swing of things I collapsed on the court. I was rushed back to my favorite people, by this time I think I had single-handedly purchased my primary physician a new boat, a Lexus, and a second house, where they determined that I was the proud owner of not only epileptic potential, but also an aortic regurgitation which became so severely pronounced during physical activity that I was now prone to collapse. I was advised not to compete at high levels any more which I ignored because I was stubborn, and just that good. Thankfully with the right meshing of a pill and advanced training regiments, I was able to continue.
You would think all of this would depress me, or hell even be the end of it, but you would be wrong. My senior year of high school, I began having severe panic attacks. To this day I have them now and again, thankfully less severe and I'm more able to control them without need of more medication. Six weeks after I graduated high school, I had to have emergency gall bladder surgery as the damn thing quit contracting and ruptured caused severe jaundice and bile leakage into my abdomen.
The Point.
I say all this, mostly because I am verbose but also because my doctor today ran all manner of tests on me. Thankfully no sleep study, although that is still to come if the insomnia continues. I am anxiously awaiting results for god-knows-what sort of tests, the only thing I do know is that my brain is clean (well, except for my thoughts but they can't read those on an CT). Bloodwork should be in tomorrow, though I don't know why they drew blood or what they might be checking it for. With my family history though, there could be any number of things underlying the sleeplessness for which my lack thereof is a symptom. Who knows...
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