How am I? Oy!!!!

Hi friends and family,

I've had a freaky week.  I was on vacation with two of my children that flew over from the U.S.  We had a fantastic time taking them to Rome, Pisa, Cinque Terre, and the home of bad Vampires.... Volterra.  (Twilight Fan Alert).  We ate gelato and pizza here in Modena and pretty much everywhere we went. :0)  We really had a great time. 

After they left, we were exhausted, getting old ain't for sissies and we are not even 50 yet. ha!  I have been having a very hard time sleeping since menopause has set in.  I wake up in the middle of the night unable to go back to sleep.  then anxiety would set in..... am I ever going to go back to sleep?  My husband was getting annoyed that I was never in bed.  I talked to the Dr. and she gave me some ambien.  This stuff has been a godsend.  I would sleep, wake refreshed in the morning and have creative ideas.  It was so nice to sleep.

But, this week, I had an Ambien episode.  I have lost an entire day.  I don't remember anything about it, the last thing I remember is coming home from the Commissary with the DH and putting away the groceries on Sunday evening.  Tom came home Monday afternoon to find me hanging clothes I had washed out on the balcony, only half dressed.  I told him I needed help changing the bed.  When he went in I had spread nutella and honey all over the sheets.  I had eaten 1/2 a jar of nutella, some honey, an entire bag of oreos and some other things in the kitchen.  Tom said I was ping ponging around the house, carrying on sometimes lucid and other times not conversations, but he could tell I wasn't awake.  I talked to my parents on the phone and don't remember a thing I said to them.  I chopped up bread into little pieces and then dutifully put all the pieces in a ziploc baggie for the birds. I sent an email to my sister and the head of my design team with lots of mistyping and misspelling in them.

When I woke up on Tuesday, I didn't know it was Tuesday.  I thought it was Monday. My ambien bottle was open in the bathroom and there were only 5 in it.  Last I remember there were 20. I found ambien all over the house.  In my other pill bottles, on the floor in the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom.  But, I must have figured I wasn't sleeping and took more (I usually only take 1/2 a pill). 

It scared me so bad that I cried for 1/2 a day.  I've never been "drunk" where you would forget a day, but this was like that I suppose.  I'm distressed trying to figure out what I did and what I ate!!  I am a gastric bypass patient, so I can't have sugar and if I do, not very much.  So, on top of the ambien, I must have put my body into a sugar coma with all the weird stuff that I ate.  I usually don't put on weight because I write down what I eat, but I had been putting on weight lately and I suppose it was Ambien eating.

My husband now has the pills hidden and parcels out 1/4 as needed.  I'm trying to get off the stuff totally and boy is it tough.  I hate not sleeping and that wonderful pill would just relax me so well.  I've never been addicted, but this might be close if not bullseye.  So, now I am suffering through not sleeping again to get this under control and into a normal rhythm for me When I don't sleep, of course, I don't create well.  So that is my "Sleeping in Italy" or "While I'm NOT Sleeping" saga. 

I'm much more light hearted about it today than earlier in the week, so, onward and upward!  This too shall pass.