A Good Night's Sleep

Your specifics may be different, but perhaps some of you can relate…

Last night:

Between midnight and 1:00 a.m.:  After spending too long looking at Pinterest, head to bed.

Between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m.:  Quit reading book review book, turn out light, and go to sleep.

Approximately 2:50 a.m.:  Become aware that there is some sort of repetitive, scuffling noise in the hallway. Investigate.  Rosie (one of our cats), is engaged in what appears to be a hunting mission involving some small, unseen creature who is apparently behind or beneath an unsteady stack of file folders, pocket folders, binders, and notebook paper that has been sitting ”temporarily” on a cart in the hallway for the last thirteen years.  Blinking owlishly at overhead light, stand in hallway for several minutes debating what to do.  Try to flush out the critter?  (Probably a mouse—probably, in fact, the source of a rustling that I heard in a nearby closet earlier in the day and which I tried to convince myself was just the floor creaking as I stepped on it.)  Arm myself with a flashlight, proper shoes (the thought of a mouse running across my bare toes is too horrible to imagine), and a broom?  Ignore the whole spectacle and return to bed, hoping that it will all go away?

3:00 a.m.:  Ignore it is.  Return to bed, latching door for good measure.  Que sera, sera.  Comfort self that at least any rodent bloodshed will occur out of sight and earshot.  Hopefully.

3:15 a.m.:  Sniffly, germ-laden child materializes in disconcerting way beside bed and informs me that she can’t sleep and in fact has not really been asleep AT ALL in the several hours since I left her.   Ply her with snacks and allow her to get into bed with me.  Cats, who have been shut out of bedroom due to vermin situation, now eagerly converge onto the bed, pinning our splayed limbs in various uncomfortable positions.  Tippy in particular makes it clear, through repeated and imploring vocalizations, that his exile from the bedroom has been most unwelcome.  Push Tippy off the bed.

3:30 a.m.:  Drifting off into a pleasantly anxiety-free slumber, am awakened once more by child announcing that she has decided to return to her own bed.   Agree that this is best and roll over, enjoying the luxurious feeling of now having plenty of leg room.  Two cats fall to the floor in the process.

3:45 a.m.:   Finally get to sleep.

4:38 a.m.:  Awake to puzzling silence to discover that power has gone off, thus rendering both white noise machine and alarm clock ineffective.  Muttering incoherently, get up and scrabble for flashlight, knocking an empty sticky roller to the floor with an echoing clatter.  Step on empty sticky roller.   Find flashlight, turn it on, stumble out to living room to retrieve phone in order to not be late for work in the morning.  Wait.  It IS morning.  Sigh loudly.  Phone light flashes annoyingly.  Shove phone halfway under pillow.

4:45 a.m.:  Power returns.  White noise machine whirs to life.  Now clock blinks annoyingly.  Reset clock and alarm.  Use light from phone to make sure that clock is being set to “a.m.” and not “p.m.”  Shove phone back under pillow.  Go.  To.  Sleep.

7:15 a.m.:  Alarm goes off.  Rise and shine!

Don't Be So Hard on Yourself

I couldn't resist posting this.  Listen to it!

"Don't Be So Hard on Yourself" -- Jess Glynne

Music Heals

“Music can minister to minds diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.”
--Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

      I don’t know about you, but I would LOVE for something to rid me of “all the perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.”  Shakespeare thought that music could do the trick there, and he’s right.  This isn’t exactly new—people have used music as a tool to soothe for probably as long as there have been babies and parents to sing them lullabies—but multiple scientific studies in recent years have fortified belief into proven fact:  music can heal. 

              

     According to some of these studies, music can do the following (*):

• Soothe premature babies, calming their heart rates and helping them sleep better.  Live music either played (by music therapists) or sung (by their parents) to the babies in the NICU not only helped the infants, it also helped calm their parents.

• Improve the functioning of our immune systems.

• Reduce stress (How many of us already knew this?).

•  Reduce anxiety before surgery better than prescription drugs.

•     Help pediatric patients in emergency rooms experience less pain when having IVs inserted (and also make it easier for nurses to insert the IVs—Can you hear ER nurses everywhere uttering up a “Hallelujah?”).

Between reading about these studies and also reading about 1) purring as stress relief for both cats and their humans (**) and 2) an ultrasound treatment that was being tested on mice whose brains contained the sort of plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s disease in humans (***), I wondered if vibration alone (music = sound = vibration) would have similar beneficial effects.  As it turns out, other people have wondered that, too.  In one study (*), researchers had Parkinson’s patients sit on a mat that transmitted acoustic vibrations (picture sitting on a subwoofer while it’s vibrating) for a certain period of time.  They found that exposure to the vibrations appeared to improve the patients’ mobility and reduced their tremors, at least on a short-term basis.

While not a scientific study in and of itself, the music therapy provided to Alzheimer’s patients as seen in the movie “Alive Inside” (in which unresponsive dementia patients are provided with iPods loaded with music meaningful to them) produced amazing and inspiring results.  People who had shut down or had been uncommunicative due to their dementia seemed to “come alive” after listening to the music.  Many were then able to communicate more effectively and lucidly after listening.  The music often called up memories for them of their pasts, which they could then talk about.  In most cases, the music had a visible, immediate effect on their mood—faces lit up, smiles appeared, and some (including those who normally seemed unable to converse) began singing along.  I defy anyone to watch this documentary and not walk away believing that music can sometimes be a medicine equal to or better than any (expensive, side-effect-laden) drug.

In my personal life, I have experienced music as a healing, or at least stress-reducing, agent as well.  Several years ago I had jaw surgery in which my lower jaw was broken, slid forward, and screwed into a new position to improve my bite (and thus lessen the terrible TMJ problems I was experiencing).  It was, needless to say, painful.  One thing that helped tremendously was listening to a CD of Native American flute music performed by R. Carlos Nakai.  I am convinced that that particular music had actual healing qualities for me.  Recently, as I deal with a life made increasingly difficult by the dementia that plagues my husband (accompanied by worries about finances, and career, and being a parent, and the state of our country and our world), I have relied heavily on music to strengthen my spirit and battle my anxiety and depression.  Especially effective, I find, is the song “Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself” by Jess Glynne (for maximum efficacy, crank to a high volume and sing along at the top of your lungs while driving—feel free to dance in your seat and slap the steering wheel in rhythm for emphasis).   I’ve also witnessed what music does for my husband, a music-lover and a former band instructor for many years.  Listening to “his” music (which spans multiple decades and genres) moves him to tears and to delight.  We can move to it together—and although he’s still able to talk and communicate relatively well with me, we can connect through the music in ways that seem to bypass or surpass ordinary spoken language.

Perhaps the most moving proof of the power of music I have ever seen, though, occurred during an afternoon near the end of my grandmother’s life when she (no longer able to speak much) sang along with my mother and aunt as they sang the old, familiar hymns she knew and loved.  She didn’t seem to know where she was or who we were and she couldn’t really talk to us—but she could still sing those songs.  Music, temporarily, gave her a voice again and gave all of us in the room a tangible, vocal point of connection.

Music is an incredible medicine.  It’s a gift.  I believe it to be from God, who wisely gave us so many tools, beyond tablets and liquids and syringes and radiation machines, to soothe us, to restore us, and to heal us.  So go forth, my friends, and sing.  Sing a song.  Sing out loud.  Sing out strong.  And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things (including you) shall be well.

* “Music as medicine” by Amy Novotney.  American Psychology Association.  Monitor on Psychology, November 2013, Vol. 44, No. 10, page 46.  http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/11/music.aspx

** “Can Your Cat’s Purr Heal?”  Article on Animal Wellness Magazine’s website:  http://animalwellnessmagazine.com/can-your-cats-purr-heal/

*** “Experimental ultrasound treatment targets Alzheimer’s brain plaque” by Randy Dotinga, CBS News website, March 12, 2015.  (Study itself is found in the March 11, 2015 issue of Science Translational Medicine).  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/experimental-ultrasound-treatment-targets-alzheimers/

Roller Coaster

The Screaming Eagle Roller Coaster at Six Flags St. Louis is 110 feet tall at its highest point, has a drop of 92 feet, and goes a zippy 62 miles per hour.  I am terrified of heights.  I get motion sick in cars if I don’t sit in the front seat.  And yet I have ridden this sucker twice, once in the mid-1990s when my mother was helping my husband and I chaperone a trip of his band students, and once last summer with my tween daughter and her friend.  Both times, I realized within ten seconds that I had made a dire, dire mistake.

The first time was all my mother's fault.  I’m pretty sure there was a conversation in which she said something like “It will be fun!” and I, in my carefree ignorance, agreed.   At the top of the first drop, she started screaming and continued to scream for the remainder of the two minutes and thirty seconds of hell that is the Screaming Eagle.  At the top of the first drop, I white-knuckled the grab bar, closed my eyes, and silently and desperately prayed that it would be over soon, and without loss of life, limb, or lunch.

The second time, twenty years later, my daughter and her friend wanted to ride but wanted me to come with them.  I thought, “Surely it can’t be as bad as I remember it being.”  Friends, this is the kind of misguided thinking that prompts women to go through childbirth a second, or third, or fourth time.  This time it wasn’t just as bad, it was worse, because I was not only certain that I was going to die, but also that my tiny, tiny twelve-year-old and her friend (whose mother would never forgive me) would surely be sucked out of their seats by the G-forces that were ripping my own hefty rear from the bench.  Despite the sickening views, I periodically pried open my clenched eyelids to make sure that the pair of them was still alive and relatively tethered down in the seat ahead of me.  It may have been the longest two minutes and thirty seconds of my life.  Somewhere in the cosmos, a little hourglass labeled “Jeannette’s Lifespan,” lost about three-years-worth of sand during that brief interval.

So I am not a fan of roller coasters.  And yet, in the past five years, I have found myself strapped into one with the rest of my small family—husband, daughter, and me—as we (against our will) negotiate the whips and curves on this track known as “early-onset dementia.” 

Just over five years ago, my husband began having problems with visual and spatial tasks.  He was also getting frustrated more easily and having difficulty managing his classes of elementary music and band students.  He decided to take early retirement.  His driving became somewhat erratic, resulting in some close calls on the road and in parking lots.  He started having difficulty remembering some things.  We visited doctors, he was subjected to a variety of tests and MRIs, and the conclusion was “dementia,” probably caused by Alzheimer’s.  At that point he began taking Aricept and later added Namenda to his daily regime.  His movements have gotten slower and slower, and he now shows a few of the jerks and tremors that can be associated with Parkinson’s disease.  He still knows who we are but his ability to read, process, and remember information are becoming increasingly compromised.  He needs help with dressing, getting into and out of the shower, and fixing food.  If I forget to help him tie his shoes properly, I spend the next day picking out the knots he has created in his attempt to tie them himself.

I spend every day on a roller coaster now.  Some moments are good.  Some are terrifying.  Some are heartbreaking.  I don’t know where the track will curve up ahead and where it will drop.  I don’t know how long the ride will last.  I do know where the ride will end.  It is not a place that any of us want to go to, and we are trapped, trapped, trapped on this thing.  I am frightened and sad and angry for all of us.  Getting on the ride was not a choice that any of us made.  Every day there is grief and guilt and frustration and anxiety.

  

But, right now, there is still quite a bit of ordinariness each day as well.  We can still smile and laugh.  We can still take pleasure in small, important things, like listening to favorite songs, and petting the cats, and taking walks around the neighborhood, and eating chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven.  There are people who love us and who are ready to help when they are needed.  We are not alone.

And so, we cling to each other, and we hang on tight.

Welcome!

This blog takes its name from a favorite movie, Shakespeare in Love.  As a group of actors and their playwright, William Shakespeare, try to put together a production of Shakespeare's latest work, "Romeo and Juliet," the theater owner, Philip Henslowe, has the following exchange with Hugh Fennyman, a novice actor (and the play's financial backer):

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?

Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

Hugh Fennyman: How?

Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

Henslowe (played by the marvelous Geoffrey Rush) repeats this line throughout the movie to comic, but truthful, effect.

This blog is a place where I write about my life.  It's a mysterious business, life, but I do have faith that, ultimately, it will all turn out well, "strangely enough."

Comments are always welcome so long as they are respectful and stay on topic.
Thanks for reading!