Here’s the thing about my insomnia. I go to bed around 11, take my sleeping pills and then try to get drowsy. I’m trying to turn off the active verbal parts of my brain, so I do jigsaw puzzle, adult colouring apps on my iPad, or play mahjong. Things that are repetitive but not to extent that I’m simply bored, but of enough interest so I keep at it. If I’m lucky I’ll feel drowsy by 1AM, sometimes later. I turn the light out settle down and go to sleep and wake up an hour or two later, wide awake. I used to (and do on occasion) just not sleep at all. I’d finally fall asleep at 5AM or later or not at all. Sometimes it’s my brain chasing its tail, sometimes I’m just wide awake but progressively more tired.  I can try keeping the light off and toss and turn, I can read my BBBB, I can go back to the puzzles, but I’m just not sleepy. I pay a penalty for this the next day by sleeping past the sociably acceptable time (like noon). But I feel like I’m losing half my day.

Medical report: I haven’t seen a doctor since I was discharged from hospital. I should call my infectious disease doctor next week to see if he’s back from holidays and wants to see me. The knee is very slightly better. It is still red, hot, and swollen but bit less of all of that. It’s still weak and quite painful if I twist it, like trying to put on shoes. I really can’t tell from my angle whether there are changes. I will need to have blood work done to find out whether my inflammatory markers are up or down, and to check on my very slight anemia. I still am mentally prepared for knee revision (taking out the existing knee and replacing it). I’m still on 2 different antibiotics every day.

J is back in the states but he’ll be back next week. It’s been a struggle keeping going without him but I do manage to take care of myself. I sleep a lot, not just because of insomnia but my body seems to demand a lot of sleep when I’m fighting any illness. I read, I watch TV. I’m busy making woven squares on my pin loom for the ultimate blanket. The loom is 4” square and I’m using the handspun derived from a gift. It will no doubt take a million squares and I also need to find out how much they will shrink when washed. I endure the attention of the cats. The Imp wants to sit on me, practically 24/7. Max roams around the house and jumps up on the arm of my chair and screeches in my ear. He subsides with petting but then goes off again and comes back and does it again. He’ll rarely sit down. Sometimes he brings me a toy to play with. Feeding them is chore because of bending down which is a very dangerous manoeuvre for me. I have a mountain of laundry to do, again because of the bending and standing required.

To all foreign readers (all two of you), I was not anywhere near Australia’s recent bushfires. The closest ones to me were about 50 miles away and unfortunately burnt out all the wonderful forests along the NSW south coast, which is Canberra’s vacation spot. We have been in drought for several years and it doesn’t take much to get it going. People died, millions of native animals and birds died. Here we had so much smoke in the air that the air quality was the worst in the entire world. Many places shut down and I just stayed indoors but it was very oppressive and frightening. We finally got some rain which has dampened everything down but it will take years to regenerate.