5mg

10:00PM - Like the doctor suggested, I am off all electronics and I'm getting ready for bed.
11:00PM - I hope to be able to go to sleep, but J just woke up from a nap and wants to take a shower before bed. So, I hang out with H and D for a little longer.
12:00AM - Finally, everyone is in bed, D and I snuggle for a bit, and then I'm off to sleep...

...or, so I thought...

Two hours later (and two sessions of listening to "rain therapy with binaural beats" to help me go to sleep), I'm awake, H is awake, and I can't go back to whatever semblance of sleep I was having.

3:30AM - Fuck it. I'm up. Let's just do this...

Last week, I had vertigo (or thought I had vertigo). It took me two days, until I could finally get out of bed, without feeling like I was going to throw up or fall down sideways. But, I started to feel a little bit better, and so I thought that it could have been low blood sugar. D gets me orange juice, I drink a cup of it and have some granola in the morning, and then I'm good. Right? Nope.

Maybe I'm dehydrated. Because we are under the "Stay at Home" order, I don't do much, so maybe I'm not drinking as much water as I think I am. That should be easy to fix, right? D buys me gatorade, and I make sure to drink water throughout the day.

Helps... but I still get dizzy, a few days later, so neither seem to work.

I wake up on Wednesday and think, "maybe it's my blood pressure". Yup. Sure enough - 137/81. Later in the day, the machine reads 140/101. I was able to get a Telehealth appointment with Dr. Rogers, that same day, which (in and of itself) feels like a miracle.

Dr. Rogers doesn't think I have hypertension. (I saw her a month or two ago, and my BP was low and normal.) She believes it's a sleep issue, and I need to get on a better schedule. If I am snoring, then I might be congested and not know it. (It is allergy season.) So, she recommends Flonase and for me to turn off electronics an hour before bed, and exercise.

So why have I woken up at 2AM, the last two days since I talked with her? I'm trying to do the nighttime routine, and it's worked. Sort of. The last time this happened.... oh shit. Yea...

The last time I was waking up at 2AM for nights at a time, Dr. Rogers asked me to consider increasing my anxiety medication by 5mg because.... hi - ANXIETY. Anxiety can cause you to wake up in the middle of the night, even if you go to sleep at a decent hour. Even if you try to get yourself on a schedule. Even if you're drinking all the water in the world. Even if you exercise.

And fuck me, if this isn't a high anxiety time.

In the state of Washington, 7.536 million people are staying at home and social distancing. Schools are closed. Non-essential businesses are closed, until May 4th (for now), and grocery stores are low on toilet paper, flour, cleaning supplies, and hand sanitizer. I now know of four people who have COVID-19, and the numbers here, in the US and in the world only keep growing exponentially on a daily basis. President Trump dismissed all the early calls to respond, lying to the nation that we're going to be okay and that we're prepared. MoFo - no we ain't!! And having to commission two naval ships to be off port in New York and LA, to help cities overwhelmed by the pandemic crisis we SHOULD HAVE BEEN prepared to deal with, tells you that this first world nation has no fucking clue... HE has no fucking clue what's going on.

H didn't like it, when I told her that she can't see her friends because the order to stay isolated will continue, as long as people do not comply with social distancing and think COVID-19 isn't a big deal. But, it's true. And we're seeing it across the nation. Spring break in Florida and Mardi Gras in New Orleans... yup. Fuckers still traveled and partied their asses off. Local governments didn't get their shit together and blamed the federal government for not telling them to shut it down. I get it. Those economies depend on the dollars spent by all those visitors. Well... all those visitors brought home more than just their beads and IG pics and left a little something for their hosts, too.

I've been taking this daily survey for a UW study about how COVID-19 has impacted my life. I'm answering questions about if I'm connecting to others, did I feel lonely today, and how many hours did I think about the coronavirus. Most of the time, it hasn't been too bad.

In fact, I talk to some of my friends more often because what else are we going to do. But, you can tell we don't talk about everything, about how drastically our lives have changed and how we really are coping with things. We talked about our kids and what schooling they're doing and not doing, our messed up schedules, asking each other what day it is, and if we went to the grocery store lately and how successful was the trip. We don't talk about the anxiety we're carrying every day, when we have to hold our shit together for our families, for our kids, when we have no idea when all this will be over and what 'normal' will look like when/if this ends. We don't talk about how scared we are that a loved one might get this virus and how we wouldn't be able to do anything about it (no cure and no assurances how one's body will respond). We don't talk about how angry we are at a dumbass president whose ignorant and racist comments and decisions have really screwed us over, like it hasn't been this way his whole time as president. We kind of sort of grieve together... but then you don't want to - mostly because it doesn't feel like there's any good news or you're just tired of talking about all the bad that's going on and don't want to rehash all the anger and frustration... and anxiety.

The last time Dr. Rogers said I should increase my medication, I was hesitant, and I wanted to see if I could do it on my own, by adjusting my schedule and bedtime habits. It took me a week to realize that she was right and an extra 5mg might help me get the sleep I needed to deal with the anxiety that was overwhelming me at that time.

Now, I'm not sure if 5mg will be enough.