Is it weird?

One of my son’s overnight care staff just asked me “is it weird having strangers in your house?”. So after our brief discussion I thought that I would explain a bit about my response on here, as I’m sure it’s something people who know us will have wondered about. 

We had known for a long time that we “qualified” via continuing care bingo and would be able to access overnight care, but in our old house we had nowhere to put a carer. The house layout also meant that we would hear Nate’s alarms and be woken anyway so accessing this level of help had to wait until we found a more suitable property ( thank you Simon).

Our carer was asking about this as for a long time we had only one carer trained (herself). Gradually another carer was introduced to the package and the package itself increased due to an increased need. Both carers know my son extremely well and are trained to cope with the very varied nights he has- asleep and ok ish, asleep with severe saturation drops which need a response by them, restless and upset, agitated with manic behaviour, self harm and extreme sweating, tonic episodes requiring resuscitation and gastro issues requiring frequent venting and drainage bag emptying. Is that all? Probably not. Anyway. Recently we have had new carers added to the package to cover illness, holidays and any additional or catch up days, which is what triggered the question. My answer was exceedingly brief:

 “ I don’t give a monkeys who’s wandering about”

The truth is after almost 6 years of sleep deprivation Scrooge McDuck could have turned up and as long as he had a up to date DBS and had completed all the relevant training I wouldn’t have turned him away. Though I may have asked him if he could count his money quietly the tight old git. After years and years on wards having serious discussions without a bra, wearing dubious PJs and yesterday’s socks, bumping into a carer into your kitchen with you hair aaal ower the shop it isn’t too bad. When you trust them to just laugh at your hangover as overnight care meant you got to go on the night out you usually miss out on, it isn’t too bad either. 

The thing that hit me most about actually sleeping is that I hadn’t realised how poorly my  brain had been functioning for so long. And now, after two years of a few guaranteed nights per week I can string full sentences together and make decisions I am confident in. What scares me greatly is that health professionals and community based services were looking to me to make life altering decisions about my son when I was so extremely tired and not thinking clearly. There’s a reason for the phrase “ go sleep on it”. Luckily (?) I’m an utter arse in lack of sleep mode (more so than normal I mean) so unlikely to concede to anything I felt wasn’t in Nate’s best interests. Or what I wanted for dinner. Or being right in an argument with my husband. You get the idea. 

Sleep deprivation isn’t pretty in me. Some people deal with it better that others. I am not one of those people. My Mam will attest to this. After a single disturbed night I am ratty and irritable. After two I am tearful and angry, so can you imagine how I was after nearly six years? Imagine how low my tolerance for bullshit gets. 

Sleep is vital to enable an individual to have positive relationships with those around them. Even without sleep carers will continue to function and carry on functioning until they literally drop- they have to you see because if they don’t who will? Sleep allows me to work. Sleep is so so good. I even dream now ( although often they are very shitty dreams) and I even once slept so unbelievably deeply that I didn’t move all night and actually woke up with a stiff back. Amazing! 

So to summarise IDGAF about people in my house because sleep is so, so good.