Naptime

My Bedroom at nap time (the wall next to my bed)

Finally! The heat and humidity is gone.

I actually this Saturday morning is the beginning of fall weather. My favorite time of year. 

Yesterday I had something strange happened. I laid down for my usual afternoon nap at around 2:30 PM. I usually wake up about 5 PM and prepare Bill's dinner of pureed oatmeal and banana and lots of sugar. However, yesterday he was banging on my bedroom door at about 7:20 PM, wondering when I was going to get up. 

WHAT? It took me about a minute to orient myself. I was in such a deep sleep I didn't know if it was day or night. When I take my daily nap I do close my wooden blind and pull the curtains. It was just beginning to get dark outside when I woke up.

I don't know why I slept so late. I wasn't up late the previous night. But I was totally out of it. A deep, deep sleep.

I've been taking naps for over thirty years now. A habit I probably picked up from my Mother. 

The first time I took an afternoon nap was way back in 1980 when I had that Spruce Street fourth floor apartment in center city Philadelphia. I had rented that apartment because we had already sold our townhouse which was located a few blocks away, and our house in the country wasn't finished yet. Bill had already retired and stayed at our unfinished house while I continue to work at my job at the bank by City Hall. This particular day that I took the nap was a day I took off from work because I had a God awful cold. I was just exhausted. I laid down for a nap in that sun drenched back room that I used as a bedroom in that apartment. I didn't wake up until it was dark, about eight o'clock that night. That nap did wonders for me. Ever since then I've been addicted to afternoon naps whenever I can get them. Those naps refresh and recharge my batteries. 

Lately though my naps seem to be getting longer and longer. I do have sleep apnea which I refuse to get headgear for, which my cardiologist suggested that I get so I "don't die in your sleep." I remember my immediate response to him "But that is my preferred way to go, die peacefully in my sleep."

I've had two first cousins die unexpectedly in their sleep. Randy R., my Mother's older sister son, died unexpectedly in his sleep a few years ago.  He was tall and thin like me so it wasn't like a fat man lying on his back dying in his sleep from sleep apnea. 

Cousin Randy (far left in blue, his mother and me - 2005 at the facility where she lived the last seven years of her life, in the dementia unit. She confused me with her son, calling me "Randy" during my visit to her that day. I will always remember with fondness one summer I spent living with her family when I was eight years old. They lived near a bakery and the air aways smelled of fresh baked bread. She was always so kind to me. I always remember people who are kind to me. Randy wasn't born the summer I spent living with his mother and father. She just had two older children who weren't too happy I was there for the summer. I found out many years later why I spent the summer with Aunt Jeanette, my Mother had a nervous breakdown. I asked my Mother "What happened?" She said it was too much trying to raise three rambunctious boys by herself while my father was a cross country truck driver. Little did I know then. All I remember was that wonderful summer and how kind Aunt Jeanette was too me, even if her young son (George) and daughter (Elaine) weren't too thrilled I was living in their house.

Then a few years later Hester T., one of my father's younger brother's daughter died unexpectedly in her sleep. Like Randy, she wasn't overweight either. Both were younger than me. I remember what Randy's wife said "Ron, Randy always said he wanted to die in his sleep. He didn't want to linger in a facility like his mother for years. But it's still too soon."Hester was similar. She still had a lot of living to do and then pfft! She's gone.

I'll be right up front with you folks, that is the way I hope I go. To be quite frank with you I am gettin tired of living. I only exist now to care for Bill. I don't want to die before him but he has told me if I go first he wouldn't be long behind. I worried for a while about that, the hell he would have to go through but I stopped worrying. Bill truly wouldn't last long because no one would or could take care of him like I do now. 

So here's the deal folks, if some day you should cease to see this blog updated check with Spo. My time will have come. Bear no sadness for me. I have lived a full life. I have been more fortunate than most. But life is getting more difficult now. I have trouble walking. My respiratory system is getting worse. And I suspect I have some lurking cancers waiting in the darkness ready to spring on me. 

I'm a ten year survivor from prostate cancer but my PSA is creeping up every year. My urologist tells me during my our weekly checkups "That's the cancer looking for a place to land."

This is the year I'm scheduled for another colonoscopy. I've lost tract of how many colonoscopies I've had (I think six), but the last one I had three polyps, one was precancerous. There are three types polyps; benign, precancerous and cancerous. 

Given all these choices, I would rather take a nap and not wake up.

But you ask "What about your next trip to Palm Springs?" Folks, I would LOVE to visit Palm Springs for Modernism Week in February with Pat. In fact I would love to go anywhere with Pat but I'm afraid those days are over. This is where my journey ends folks. Not a bad way to end though.

Now it's time for lunch.

Then that nap.