REM Sleep Refreshes Mental Health

These last four months have been filled with too many health and death events. 

• My AFib went into big time action on Christmas night and the few weeks afterwards,  Result - Catheter Ablation on February 25.  
• My 35 year old son, Matt, was diagnosed with Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea in December.  The sleep study folks wanted him to get a CPAP machine immediately, before the doctor even had a chance to analyse the results,
• My dear friend, Diana, died on January 2, after a ten year battle with lung cancer. 
• I was diagnosed with Sever Obstructive Sleep Apnea in early February. No surprise there.  Between my son and my brother, Lawrence, it's all in the family.  We suspect one sister is also a candidate for Sleep Apnea, but she's resisting. The Darth Vader look does not appeal.
• My 13 year old dog, Lady, died on April 2. Her hips and legs were just giving out on her.  One could see that she was just giving up and fading away.  Even though she would have brief moments of puppy-ness.  It was hard to let her go. I'm still grieving for her.
• Then Mother died unexpectedly on April 25. Nuff said.

One of the things I learned from the sleep specialist is that deep sleep occurs primarily in the first half of sleep and REM (dream) sleep occurs in the second half. Sleep rests the body first through the deep sleep. Then mental health, emotions and  thoughts, get rested through the REM sleep.  That explains why my dreams seem to always be in the morning sleep periods.  

Because I have been going through so much death, illness, and worries lately, my dreams lately have been even more unusual, vivid, complex, and fascinating than usual.  I usually dream in color. My dreams have story lines.  Sometimes the story line from one dream is picked up in another dream, anywhere from days to weeks or even months later. Lately, the dreams could be a core story for a novel or screenplay.  

This morning I woke up to a dream about a film director/actor who announced that this would be his last film because he was dying of cancer.  The film's story line was about space travel. The director/actor said that he had to finish this film because it would expose all the harm that our modern practices and use of chemicals was doing to our bodies and our environment.  It was his legacy to the world.  His son was a member of the cast, He loved his father dearly and was deeply devastated but ready to carry on the work.  I was the project manager for the film, I needed to revise the film timeline to include medical reviews and appointments.  These medical reviews were consultations with his doctors to assess and prognosticate what was going on with his body so we could adjust the film activities accordingly. There was even a scene in my dream of a film scene in which someone was using a CPAP-like mask to breathe while exiting the cockpit of the space travel  machine.  

Complex, unusual, vivid, fascinating AND clearly a method of processing my own grief and feelings about the recent life events in my life.  It's almost worth going back sleep just to see what story is coming up next.  Or maybe even a sequel to a previous dream.

Mother died in my arms

     I started this blog to create a forum for me to write and share whatever came to mind. At first, I was focusing on my personal challenges related to depression, theological reflections for sermon writing and whatever else came to mind.  Then my mother was diagnosed with cancer and I started writing about that.  After a few posts, I was discouraged for revealing my thoughts and feelings by some feedback that I received from family members.  They really didn't intend to discourage me, but I was anyway. Now I wish I had not responded to their feedback in that way. I wish I had continued journaling while I was supporting Mother throughout her cancer treatments and then later while serving as her caregiver.

     Mother died 10 days ago. It was sudden. In the moment when her body objected to breathing, I could see that mother was surprised. In those five minutes while I was holding her before the ambulance arrived, I could see that she was struggling. It felt like she was trying to live as I was yelling hysterically at her to breathe. At the same time, I sensed that she just wanted to give in.  There was a moment when she tried valiantly to breathe. But it was too hard. It was time to let go. My sister was crying. We were both yelling at Mother, “BREATHE Mom, BREATHE!” I held her. I shook her. I wanted her to live, yet I knew this was the end. From the moment, she convulsed as her heart gave out, I knew this was the end. It was the end.

Thanksgiving Meals for Needy Families

Thanksgiving Meals for Needy Families 

• CTRL-Click above to see the news video. A new tab will be opened where you will need to go to see the video. At one point you will see my hands and my hear my voice.

I finally helped out with Hands for Hope this year.  I spent most of my time stocking the baggers' table with the dry goods.  I opened a jillion boxes during the short time I was there.