Rant #3,031: Sleep Walk

My wife’s COVID odyssey is all but over.

She is not sick anymore, and while she is still wearing a mask indoors, she finally ventured outside yesterday to go to the bank, and today, she plans on going back to work, wearing a mask at her workplace, too.

Thank goodness that episode is just about over … and if you need any further proof that I am overjoyed about her relatively quick recovery beyond the desire for her to be healthy, just know that I am typing out today’s Rant at about 3 a.m. in the morning.

I knew it would finally get to me, and while I have had insomnia many times before COVID entered our house, this current sleeplessness I can definitely pin on the living arrangements that we have had to make to ensure that no one else in the house was infected with this scourge.

The “novelty” of sleeping on the Castro Convertible has worn off, and I see it for what it is: I am glad that we have it, glad that it was available to me during this period … but honestly, it is like sleeping on a brick slab, and I would like to sleep in my own bed again.

When it was diagnosed that my wife had COVID, we made several changes to things in the house, mainly moving a lot of my stuff out of the main bedroom, where my wife was going to stay while she had the malady and was contagious.

So not only did I move out some of my clothes and some of my electronic gadgets from the main bedroom, but I also moved myself out of there for my own protection.

(How I did not get infected when I was in there pre-diagnosis, when we thought she only had a really bad cold, is a question for the ages.)

Anyway, the Castro Convertible in my daughter’s old bedroom—a room that currently houses my main computer and all of my records—had not been used in years, it was available to me, and it became the key piece of furniture in the house to carry out our plan, which was to get my wife better while not infecting anyone else.

We have used this bed a few times in the past.

I believe that when I had chicken pox as an adult some years ago, my wife slept on it for the very same reasons I am sleeping on it now.

I believe my aunt slept on it one night while she visited us, and I do remember that my late father-in-law slept on it several years ago for a solid week when we had him over prior to his going into a nursing home and later the Veterans home.

He said that the bed was OK for what it was, but it was hard, and every time he turned over, he felt metal jabbing into his body—the exact same thing that I am feeling as I use the bed all of these years later.

The mattress is about two inches thick, and there is a metal construction under it that not only holds the bed up, but allows it to aligned back into the couch when not in use, so yes, when you turn over, you do feel it, just as my father-in-law said.

And yes, I guess it was a bit of a novelty early on in this episode, but right now, it is nothing but a pain in the … in every part of my body.

I have tried sleeping in the living room on a very comfortable chair that we have in there that also opens up into something of a bed-like structure, but when I tried that a few hours ago, I simply could not sleep … so between the Castro Convertible and that chair, I struck out sleeping at least up until now.

I really am looking forward to getting back into my own bed, not just for physical comfort, but for mental comfort too.

Obviously, when I can crawl into that bed and sleep in it, my wife will be next to me, and that will mean that she is done with this episode, and we can move on from it.

I simply cannot wait for that to happen—probably this weekend if things stay as they are—and I cannot wait to re-rearrange things again into the way they are normally in my house but because of the presence of COVID, had to be moved and put in other places.

My wife suffered greatly while she had COVID, and I felt I was powerless to do very much to help her, although I did do the wash for her and I did cook up a few dinners during this period.

Perhaps we have nipped this thing in the bud, and we won’t have to worry about it anymore.

Me, the only symptom I have is sleeplessness, and that really hit me tonight.

I was restless in this bed the past few days, but tonight has been the worst night of all.

To paraphrase an old song, “Get me to my regular bed on time.”

Then I will know that this nightmare is finally over and done with …

And I can get back to sleep.