I recently had to renew my driver’s license. I was dreading the process. Last time, I failed the eye exam at the DMV (I swear the device was dirty!). They said I had to go get glasses, I went to do an eye exam and the person said, your eyes are fine for driving, printed me out my exam, I took it to them and they issued me my license.
Since then my eyes have gotten worse, so I was obviously worried, they got noticeably worse during all the drama from cancer and chemo. Now, I can’t remember if they’ve gotten better since the worst or how they stand vs pre-cancer. So I’ve been dreading going to renew the license. I kept reminding myself to do eye-exercises. Tried not looking at my phone too much. Looked up how much it would cost to get an eye exam. In the meantime, I’ve been so busy that the license expired! I just decided to go and see how it played out. I chatted with the licensing division rep. They had me fill out the online form. She said, Ok, read the line for me. I swallowed… I read off the line. She responded great, now just pay the fee and you’re good to go… SWEEEEET!!!
It’s good to know my vision is still pretty good. So much anxiety over essentially nothing!
I recently saw a post about Will Wheaton who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek – TNG, he is now older than Patrick Stewart was when they first filmed TNG! Anyway, I looked it up to see how old Patrick Stewart was… 46. Um…. Huh???!!!… I recently turned 46!!!
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!!!
I didn’t get to see many of Tommy’s golf tournaments this year. However, I did get to see one AND I recorded it!
I finally got around to editing the videos and I think they turned out pretty good. Tommy’s fun to watch. His hard work has been paying off. In a recent golf tournament, he was tied for the lead going into the last hole and then his last tournament ended in a outright win.
He’s ranked 10th nationwide at the juco level. He has a 4.0 GPA. We’re hoping to see him play with a D1 squad next year. I think he’ll end up securing a spot somewhere. I put the logos of players at D1 schools on the final scoresheet. He can definitely hang with them.
