Rise and Shine

It’s 10 AM and I am still in bed. 

It’s a preschool morning and I’m awash in satisfaction that Little H’s tuition check is money well-spent. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I spend a lot of time in bed, luxuriating in the quiet and relaxation simply because I can.

I understand this is a very unique spell in my adult life, where I don’t have work consuming my time and, on these mornings, also don’t have a child to look after. It feels akin to taking a sick-day - when you actually are sick - but also enjoying the quiet and restful time of recuperation.

Sort of like this. But yet so not. 

I am grateful to have these days during this tumultuous period of treatment. Completely removing the obligation of work (thank you medical leave of absence) is an important aid in my physical endurance, but even more so, my emotional state. I need to shed as much as possible during a period of overwhelming stress. I need silver linings, such as a couple of months off of work, to help me cope.

So, without work and without my little guy, I simply sit in bed this morning.

Today is lovely bed-weather; it’s cool and gloomy. Bobby pulled our big, puffy down comforter out of storage a couple of weeks ago, but he has it carefully folded to spread across his side of the bed only. Thanks to the monthly injections of Lupron I now receive in order to shut down my hormone production (and avoid a repeat of my bleeding episode,) I’ve been thrown into immediate and severe menopausal symptoms. I have hot flashes so frequently that I can barely keep covers on at night, let alone goose down.


Like this. But sans the make-up.

Poor Bobby has taken to sleeping in socks and fleece to compensate for my keeping the heater in the so-cold-it-might-as-well-be-off setting. I lie next to his burrowed body in a t-shirt, maybe a sheet, and awaken over and over again in a drenching heat that sweeps over me in an instant. I swear I can feel the individual sweat droplets rising out of my scalp. The cotton turban hats I sleep in (think Persian man’s Dastar meets 1950’s housewife) come on and off at least a half dozen times in one night. I’ve actually developed a system for how I push them off so that I can find them in the dark to pull back onto a scalp that grows cold quickly when the hot flash subsides.

This is not exactly how I envisioned my 20’s unfolding.

But… at least they’re still unfolding. And, well, I didn't have to go to work today, and I'm still in bed at 10 AM. That is worthy of appreciation.