By Soania Mathur
Well here I am, 3:40 AM, up and out of the warmth of my bed – yet again. It’s been years of sleep issues of every sort. Sometimes it’s initial insomnia where I’ve spent countless hours staring into the darkness, reading into every shadow, tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable position, trying not to wake my husband, trying not to look at the clock which seems to mock my difficulty. Other nights I do fall asleep, either because I haven’t truly slept in literally days or because I’ve given in and actually taken yet another pill, this one designed to make me sleep for a few precious hours. I don’t often do this, mostly due to my own stubbornness, the desire to will my body to do what it’s supposed to do without the need for something outside of me to do the job. This obstinate stand usually frustrates my husband and my oldest daughter whose plea “Mama, what’s one more pill especially if it helps?” makes complete logical sense. Yet to me that one little pill (or the three it takes now) represents yet another way this disease has taken away my ability to control [...] continue the story