Macbeth is not the only one who yearns for “sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care.”
My mother has spent the past two nights unable to sleep. That means we don’t sleep either.
And here’s yet another reason to love the Internet.
At midnight, I get onto Google and search for “elderly insomnia.” Lots of information there, including suggestions for drugs such as Lunesta and Desyrel.
I decide to take another tack and re-educate myself about our circadian rhythms and the function of the pineal gland (the famous “Third Eye”) in producing melatonin, which makes us feel drowsy.
My mother gets practically no daylight, which means that her pineal gland is probably not producing enough melatonin. On top of that, her brain atrophy might be affecting the pineal gland as well, since it’s located in the deep middle of the brain.
In the back of my “pill” shelf (you know, Omega 3, Resveratrol, MicoMedicinals, and other stuff I buy and then forget to take), I find a bottle of sublingual melatonin, 2.5 mg.
I take one and give one to my mother.
It’s now 1:16 a.m. We are both still up, but it can take more than an hour for the melatonin to kick in.
Yawn.