Monday, September 21, 2009

can't sleep

I am having a difficult time sleeping. My mind is racing through all different things. Things that make sense, some that don’t, some that are terrible scenarios…I can’t shut it off, the only thing to do is to write and try to get it all down and then maybe I can get some sleep.
Robin, my father-in-law is in the hospital. He went in on Thursday night. I am very frightened, even though everyone else in the family seems to be taking this as something rather routine. In a way it is because of Robin’s crohn’s and his tendency to be hospitalized at least once a year. I am new to the family though and don’t see it as routine. Also, Richard, Evan’s brother is coming from Seattle this week. That makes me scared. Why would Richard be coming if it wasn’t serious?

The thing that makes me nervous is that this doesn’t have anything (as far as they can tell) to do with Robin’s illness. Initially they thought it was an infection caused by the needle from his prednisone shot nicking a nerve or something. Making his leg swell and become both numb and inflamed. Now, his leg is becoming almost unrecognizable, they have ruled out the shot as the culprit, still believe it is an infection but do not know the cause. Nor it seems how to stop it. They are taking blood draws about every hour, his blood is not clotting, he has been sent in for a second MRI.

I love Robin. He is, as Anne of Green Gables would say, a “kindred spirit”. He and I have been getting to know each other over the last couple of years and I enjoy him. He doesn’t always look on the bright side of life, but he most often is looking at the good in life. He is the person in Evan’s family that I most relate to and can speak freely with. I don’t feel overwhelmed by him, nor belittled. He makes me laugh and I think, in all honesty, he keeps my mother-in-law from becoming a complete recluse crazy cat/dog lady.

Robin’s sudden downturn is happening on the heels of Evan and I beginning in earnest to make the move to PNG. I think that it is part of Satan’s attempts to bring stress, doubt, anything bad into our lives right now. There have been other things happening recently that are (in our minds) also in line with this theory.

I was suffering from pretty bad paranoia (and thus interrupted sleep patterns) for about a week off and on. At first I just had these horrid feelings of being watched, of thinking someone was in the house. Then I was overwhelmed with the feeling that someone was going to try to kidnap Liam. I even resorted to at first locking his window and then bringing him into bed with me, because I couldn’t sleep after having these thoughts. Evan and I talked about it and I have been praying and that seems to be working…There are other things going on that I don’t really want to get into. Paramount on my mind is Robin and now that I have laid out my fear I think I can try and sleep now.