Dave of the Thousand Days

With apologies to "Casablanca" producer Hal Wallis and those others who
helped make the 1969 film "Ann of the Thousand Days," (Richard Burton,
Genevieve Bujold, etc.) you're about to hear the story of "Dave of the
Thousand Days."

Many of you know the life-changing situation I encountered in the late 90s and
early 2000s with a sleep disorder. For the uneducated, I'll briefly recount what
happened, and how it relates to the "Thousand Days."

All my life, I never had one bit of trouble sleeping. I could practically take a nap
on demand anytime of the day. At night, I was asleep as soon as my head hit
the pillow and woke up after 8 hours or so of dreamless sleep, thinking I had
just laid down a moment earlier.

In 1990, I changed jobs and had to be at work at 4:30 in the morning. This
meant going to bed around 8:30 the previous night. Claudia was working long
hours and usually didn't get home until my bedtime. It's hard to keep a
marriage going when a couple is not on the same schedule and never see
each other, so I decided to try something new. I would get home from work
around one o'clock in the afternoon, eat lunch and lay down for a 3 hour nap.
This gave me time to be with Claudia as I would stay up until about 11 o'clock
or so. I went to bed at night whenever I felt sleepy, which varied anywhere
from 10 o'clock to 11:30. I continued sleeping in "two shifts" for the next nine
years. No problem.

Then in June of 1999, one Monday afternoon afternoon, I lay down for my nap
and only slept 90 minutes. I was puzzled, but it didn't worry me. But the rest of
the week, I began to sleep less and less, and by Friday I couldn't nap at all,
and had trouble sleeping at night. I was getting less than 4 hours sleep in a
24-hour period, and by this time I was panicking! I felt like garbage each day.
Some people just feel tired the next day after losing sleep. I was experiencing
almost flu-like symptoms!

After a visit to my doctor, he put me in the hospital and ran three days of tests.
Nothing was wrong. If he had told me that even healthy people get insomnia
occasionally, I would have simply said, "Okay," and the whole thing would have
been over soon. But that didn't happen. But the continued panic did.

The next week, sleep returned and I slept like a rock for the next 8 days. Then
the insomnia hit again. This went on for the next 21 months -- periods of heavy
sleep and periods where I only got 3 hours or so of sleep each night. One
night I only slept 30 minutes!

I was beside myself! I went to a bazillion doctors who tried every type of
anti-depressant medication and seditive you could name (this was in the days
before Sonata, Lunesta and Ambien -- excellent meds!). Life was really
getting tough to handle. I didn't know whether to throw up, wet my pants or
jump out a window! Yes, I'm a Christian. And I prayed and prayed to God for
help, but it felt my prayers were getting no higher than the ceiling. This is
where I learned the lesson God was trying to teach me. It is: He has his
timing, and it's not mine. Isaiah 40 says to wait upon the Lord. It was tough,
and I was learning the hard way. The Supremes, in the summer of 1966, told
us we can't hurry love. And I had to learn you can't hurry God either.

Finally, the Lord led me to an excellent doctor (a former NASA flight surgeon) who had
seen my symptoms before and knew what to do. He diagnosed me as a
"cycling insominiac," a condition distantly related to bipolar disorder. The
prescription he got me on has worked well up to this day. It wasn't just the
medication, though. I had to literally "retrain" myself to sleep. I had to get out
of the panic. It had created a vicious cycle that was fueling most of my
problem. I began to spend a couple of 20-minute periods a day in relaxation
excercises. Not a bodily excercise, but a mental one. Long periods of
good-sleep nights began to return, starting in late March of 2001.

However, I still had occasional "semi-sleepless night," when I would feel like
trash the next day. First, a couple per month, then about 12 a year...then 8 a
year...then 5 a year...3 a year, ect. I kept a sleep log to indicate how many
nights in a row I slept well. First 30 nights in a row was great, then 100 nights in
a row, and it number kept growing. Finally in 2007 I had only two
semi-sleepless nights for the whole year! Then I went the WHOLE YEAR in
2008 sleeping well. Then 2009 (even though a new job had me working
irregular hours). Now it's 2010 and I'm still going strong.

Is there something special about "a thousand days"? I don't know. John F.
Kennedy's presidency is often called "the Thousand Days of Camelot" (even
though he was actually president 1,036 days). Maybe there's something of a
"completeness" to a period of 1,000 days. I usually look to the Bible for such
ideas, but the Scriptures are silent on this one (although Jesus' earthly ministry
was probably about this period of time).

All I know is that as of Thursday morning of this week, I had gone 1,000 days
without a semi-sleepless night. The last one was May 29, 2007.

Will my sleep disorder return? I can't say. I'm still on my medication, but it's
working great. Although I occasionally have a little trouble falling asleep, I
wake up each day fully refreshed, My doctor says at 62-years-old, my immune
system is rock-solid (sleep restores the immune system, you know).

I feel like a million bucks, and I am active and enjoying life. Not bad for an old
man.

Just call me "Dave of the Thousand Days."