Everyday Life

I recently came across this info that a teenager set a world record for going without sleep for 11 days in 1964… um, please, only 11 days?

Last year, I underwent some pretty harsh emergency surgery. I was in the ICU for over a week and in the hospital for around 2 1/2 weeks total. Nearly the entire time I spent in the hospital, I didn’t sleep. The last couple days I got some sleep, but even then for only a couple hours each day. Why? Because of incredible pain and discomfort. I didn’t sleep for well over 2 weeks. The closest I got to sleep was when the hospital gave me melatonin and the drug got me very close, but just as I started to drift off, my brain freaked out and sent my anxiety to an eleven. I looked at the clock, because for some reason hospitals think you want a huge brightly lit clock to stare at, per the clock, I didn’t get any sleep.

But I can’t believe that I’m the only one to not sleep, or that I’m some special case.

This is my hospital experience after going through major surgery. From memory, I had 12 drips with 12 alarms that were constantly going off. While the number of drips weened slowly as the days went by and it looked like I was going to live, the alarms were still pretty regular. Plus, a lot of the drips were painful and had to be swapped out every few hours. Then you have assistants checking vitals, drawing blood multiple times a day. There’s the horrible hospital bed that adjusts every few minutes to ostensibly keep you from getting bed sores. Then since I was at a teaching hospital, I got various doctors at all hours coming in to poke and prod. There was the pain, did I mention that? Apparently since I wasn’t screaming about pain, they thought that meant all I needed was Tylenol, cause heaven forbid they use opioids in this opioid epidemic. To be fair, I rated the pain to them pretty low, because, to me it was pretty low. It was only sharp when I moved, like trying to sleep.

So yeah, over two weeks. But I guarantee you that there is someone who has gone much longer. I don’t believe for a second that I’m unique.

Regarding the experience, I wouldn’t say I hallucinated or had any other psychedelic experiences. However, the perception of time was what got to me. When people are acting like you’re going to die, when you can’t eat or drink or sleep for over a week and all you stare at is the red clock on the wall and are just gritting your teeth and holding on. minutes begin to feel like hours and hours days. As cliche as that sounds, it’s the truth. The closest sensation I can give for how I felt for the entire hospital stay was how I feel getting my teeth cleaned. I grip the chair a little too tightly and just have this heightened sense of anxiety. Stretch that sensation out over weeks… All day and all night. When I left, the hospital, I felt like I had been gone so long, my home didn’t feel like my home. I felt like I hadn’t seen my kids in over a year. I honestly felt like nothing was mine. After a couple of months, I felt good enough to try driving again and it was like trying to pick something up after years. It was so foreign.

As for 11 days being some type of world record, no way, not close. There’s no way others haven’t gone without sleep for much longer than me. Maybe they can call it a voluntary no sleep record. Either that, or I’m the legit world record holder!!!