• My boy

    Adam still likes stuffed animals. We thought he might outgrow this “faze” by the time he started kindergarten. He hasn’t.

    Don’t get me wrong, this is not something that disturbs me in any way. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It reflects his personality – a sweet, sensitive kid. Often he’ll notice I’m not feeling too well, and without a word he’ll leave a surprise for me by my pillow. Tonight it’s a soft little white bunny to keep me company – to make me feel a little better.

    He won’t mention it afterwards. It’ll disappear one night, only to be replaced by another when necessary. I wonder if he does it to let me know he was there, he cares, and just wants to help in his own special way – no glory or special credit – just a little piece of timely love.

    Maybe I’m reading too much into the actions of a six year old boy. Maybe it doesn’t matter what the precise reason is, just intent and results.

    Adam, my dear sweet child – we love you.

  • Words make the soul feel good

    I spend a lot of time writing about depression, cancer, sleep disorders, and generally unpleasant stuff.

    Today I’m writing about a letter my boss received a little while ago. I was the subject.

    In my line of work, or just about any line of work I suppose, a letter to your boss is usually not good. Letter writers tend to be motivated by anger, or some negative emotion, probably because it’s more likely to be well fed and grow strong. Folks rarely feel compelled to put their praise on paper, let alone get up the gumption to fold it, stuff it, stamp it, and mail it.

    Now that I think about it, I could do a whole post about anger versus joy, but I don’t want to. So I’m not going to. Now I’m going to move on.

    I didn’t take the news well. My boss led with the comment a copy sat in my personnel file already. Isn’t that great? I’ve managed to avoid a single official complaint for over 15 years of public service. I take pride in it, if you’ll allow me this small bit of vanity.

    Well, it turns out the letter wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was pretty good.

    It was from a recently retired Judge I used see regularly. It talked about my reliability, knowledge, character… most of the stuff you’d see in a glowing letter of recommendation. I won’t bore you with a recitation of the whole thing, but I’d like to share the last few sentences.

    Serving for 30 years as a Marine Corps officer, I evaluated the performance of literally thousands of young men and women. John would rank in the top five percent of all of those evaluated.

    (My employer) is fortunate to have John, a truly loyal and dedicated employee.

    It’s not poetry. It wouldn’t make a great speech.

    But it choked me up. I’m such a softy.

    My job has its own rewards. I don’t stand around waiting for someone to heap praise on the agency hero. I know I’ve helped people, from the tone of their voice when we speak, to the numbers in a report.

    I know I’ve disappointed people too. No one is perfect.

    However, reports don’t do too much for me and the recent political climate increasingly paints me and my ilk as greedy, lazy, over-paid, and under-achieving. There’s apparently nothing we can do the private sector can’t do better – with a roster of trained quadrupeds.

    Rumor has it we hate apple pie too.

    OK, I’m done ranting and raving. I’ve wiped all the foam and spittle off my chin and keyboard. Raise your hand if you could have done without that visual. If you think that was whiney, you should have seen this post before I cut a few hundred words.

    Anyway, all of this is a long way of saying it’s nice to know someone noticed I’m not as bad as the GOP would have you think, even if it was just words put to paper.

  • Vindication

    It’s not the kind of vindication I wanted.

    Some of us go through life deluding ourselves that our experiences are wholly unique. We experience an accident or fall victim to illness and we believe we are alone. We are not alone, but we don’t know it. Maybe it’s because we’re unique among our peers, where our physical and mental injuries are concerned. The internet makes the world a little smaller but it doesn’t necessarily change the way we feel about ourselves, or how others feel about us.

    Cheryl is often tired. I don’t deny it. She has a hard job and she doesn’t stop when she gets home. Still, as much as I love her, I don’t think she really understood how tired I am. All the time. A persistent state of exhaustion.

    I knew from a sleep study I did several years ago that I suffered from abnormally frequent limb movements in my sleep, but the quality of my sleep got progressively worse. I’ve danced around the issue for a couple years, taking half measures with this doctor or that, but earlier this year I reached my breaking point. My doctor referred me to a wonderful pulmonologist specializing in sleep medicine. The first thing she wanted to do was go over the data from my last sleep test. She said she didn’t trust the folks who often interpret the data – she likes to draw her own conclusions. Then she wanted me to have another sleep test.

    That was last night.

    I’m normally tired, but a short, bad night of sleep with more wires than a late 80s sedan and tubes up my nose is not a recipe for a good mood. However, even with all those distractions, I felt like I slept a little better than usual. It would have been great if it lasted more than four hours.

    I was surprised when my doctor called me this afternoon with the results. The tech said it would be a week or two. The good news is I don’t have sleep apnea, so I don’t have to wear one of those God awful looking masks plugged in to a cpap machine. The not so good news is my limbs still move around a lot, though that’s not exactly news. I also snore a lot – as in all night. That’s not exactly news either. My wife sleeps MUCH better when I retreat to the other room to sleep on my g-g-grandfather’s bed. The bad news is the quality of my sleep has gotten worse. According to my doctor, a guy my age should spend somewhere in the ballpark of half the night in deep sleep or REM sleep. I spend a whopping 2-3 percent.

    And here’s the best part: it’s probably all in my head – or the drugs I put there. The drugs that help quell the dark beast of depression can also be responsible for a decrease in deep sleep and REM sleep. Then again poor sleep can lead to depression.

    Chicken, meet your egg.

    Wether it can result in such a stunning drop is another question, but it’s a conversation I’m about to have with another doctor – next week in fact.

    In the mean time, I really freaking tired. Napping half the day didn’t do the trick, so it’s time to go back to bed and get my 2-3 percent. It feels like it’s better than nothing – if only marginally.