Sleeping

I’ve always been a messy sleeper, even before I was outta mother’s womb!

See, about one week before my due date, mother goes and sees the doctor. “There’s a problem.” She announces. “My baby isn’t kicking anymore.”

The doctor has a feel of mum’s tummy, and then reassures her, “Oh, there’s nothing wrong. Your baby’s fine; she’ll come out in a week or so. Just go home and wait.”

However, mother is insistent that there’s something definitely very wrong with me! “See, doctor,” she explained, “my daughter has a routine. Every morning around 7am or so, she wakes up, has a bit of a stretch, kick and wiggle, then settles back down. However, this week, before I came to see you, she’s been moving less and less. In fact, only this morning, all I got was one tiny little *nudge* from her! I’d liken that movement to what expectant mothers feel for the very first time when their baby starts moving, not someone that’s basically full term, like me. So there’s definitely something very wrong with my baby, doctor, and you had better find out what.”

The doctor agrees to mum’s demand, and hooks her up to some monitor to hear my heartbeat for one hour. At the end of the one hour, the doctor comes back to mother. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Chan,” he says, “but you were correct. Please call your husband and get him to come here right away. It’s an emergency; your baby’s got to come out NOW.”

See, what the monitor revealed was that my heart rate had plummeted DRAMATICALLY; basically, I was already such a messy sleeper while inside mother’s tummy that I’d kicked and rolled around so much, I’d somehow managed to wrap my umbilical cord around my neck and was STRANGLING myself! O_O

So mother rings dearest dad, fasts for eight hours, goes under the knife and waaah! Out I come! I’m only a little baby, though; at a measly 2.45kg, I only just make it out of being put into an incubator. The doctor doing the rounds sees me and decides I’ll be right on my own, although mother recalls how easy it was to locate me whenever she and dad came to the nursery to visit me. “You were just the smallest baby there!” she laughs.

Back home, I continued being a messy sleeper. At night, mother would put me to bed facing one direction, but when she came to find me in the morning, I’d be facing the other direction! Meaning sometime during the night, I’d sit up, do a 180 then lie back down again. See, aren’t I smart? ;)

Of course, growing up, I had my fair shares of nightmares. I still recall one to this very day. I’m inside a castle (because doesn’t every girl aspire to be a princess someday? XD) and there’s some baddie chasing me around with an evil potion. “Three percent dead!” the baddie cries, flinging the potion over me. Luckily, I’m saved by someone who tips another potion over me. “Five percent alive!” is her reply.

My favourite teddy credits himself for the fact that I had a relatively nightmare-free upbringing. “I protect you every night,” he tells me solemnly. “Whenever a bad dream tries to come and scare you, I scare it away first.”

However, my sleeping habits took a dive right when the cruel and unfaithful God so wantonly destroyed my life back in 2007 with the disabling brain tumour. Okay, I wasn’t even conscious while I was in ICU or the acute neurological ward 2C, but after I regained full consciousness in the insane asylum (more commonly known to everyone else as the Brain Injuries Rehab Ward of the Princess Alexandra Hospital XD) I suffered majorly from lack of sleep. Well, I’d be asleep, but then the cruel and unfaithful God would send me some horrifying nightmare, how I was disabled, useless and abandoned forever. I’d wake up terrified, cry myself silently back to sleep (because obviously you can’t cause a ruckus in the middle of some hospital room! XD) only for God to send me yet another terrifying nightmare. Apart from that, the nurses would enter my room at all sorts of odd hours during the night, bang around and do noisy things. So sleep wasn’t really possible for me while I was still imprisoned in the insane asylum.

But did I ever catch up on all that much-needed sleep when I was finally released from BIRU! Like, I’d sleep till like 11:30am, get up, eat some brunch and do some, say, reading. Around 3pm, I’d be like, “Mum, I’m sleepy. Going for a nap now.” Only a nap for me wasn’t like thirty minutes, no, it was more like three or four HOURS! I’d get up, have dinner with my parents then around 8:30pm or 9pm, say, “Mum, I’m sleepy. Bedtime now, good night.” Then the whole cycle would repeat itself again. This went on for like one whole month, and got to the stage where mother was seriously considering taking me to see the doctor because honestly, it can’t be normal to sleep your whole life away?? However, around that time, I started pulling out of it, and now I’m fine with the usual eight hours that everybody else gets, although my teddy and I do love an occasional good sleep-in! ;)

In 2012, I decided to start noting down whenever I had a ‘great sleep’ otherwise known as when I’d say sweet dreams to my teddy, fall asleep and not wake up till the next morning, when the sky had lightened enough for me to be able to see the clock mounted on my wall. In 2012, I notched seventy-eight of those awesome sleeps. By 2015, however, that number had risen to 242! Today also marks a new milestone I have achieved: I have enjoyed successive awesome sleeps for a whole FORTNIGHT! I remember enjoying thirteen consecutive great sleeps last year, but on the 14^th night, my idiot bladder wakes me up, demanding I go! “Oh, leave off,” I grumble. “Just one more night.” But when nature calls, you’ve gotta listen! XD

So yes, I feel very fortunate now to enjoy such good quality sleep night after night. Hopefully the cruel and unfaithful God has realised that I’m not the most hateful person to him after all and he has gone to torment someone else.

Funnily enough now, I very rarely dream anymore! Or, if I do, I suppose I don’t remember it. Several years back, I had a small eyelash surgery done for my right eye. See, not only were my eyelashes getting too long, they were also growing inwards, and the doctor was afraid that if the eyelashes kept growing in that direction, they’d poke and scratch my cornea. So the surgeon brings me in and trims my eyelash for me under a sedative and a local. Originally, he’d planned to do the procedure under a general anaesthesia, but I talked him outta it. See, I’ve heard that every time you go under general anaesthesia you wake up heaps dumber, and I’d already been under like seven times since 2007; if doctors kept putting me under G.A every time I needed a procedure done, soon you wouldn’t be able to find anyone more stupid than me! XD My dream: the hospital rings to confirm my details before I have the small procedure done. I’m in the midst of telling the person on the other end of the line my home address when I hear a *duut duut duut*. I look over at mother. “Wonder why the line cut?” I asked her. “That’s alright,” she replies. “You can go to the bathroom now.” I remember thinking, “Why’s she telling me to go to the loo?’ when suddenly, I wake; and gosh, I’m BUSTING!! XD

Well, it’s 2016 now and I’ve just enjoyed my first fortnight’s worth of awesome sleeps. Hopefully there will be many more of those to come~

Next post here … well, I still haven’t finished my movie review of Spectre that I saw with Ray and Sisi at the end of last year! Or, if I’m super-unorganised, I guess you won’t here from me again till March the 1^st with my birthday wishlist for the year. XD Anyways, until then~

Cheers,

Em. ^^