Xanax with a Nyquil Chaser

I work from home as a medical transcriptionist.  I also have a VERY active 3-year-old boy who is home with me during the day.  This 3-year-old boy has recently decided he is beyond nap time.  We went from a three-hour nap every day to NOTHING.  In fact, putting him in his room alone for nap time has proven to create chaos: once he redressed himself in dirty clothes, another time he emptied out all his drawers, and finally he managed to pull his dresser down.  I decided it is just safer for all of us if we don't even try nap time now.

This lack of nap time has made working from home quite difficult.  I tend to work when he is asleep.  I'd get up at 5:00 in the morning and work until he got up around 8:30 and then again during nap time.  Now that there is no nap time, I've had to get creative and work more during the evening when the man is home.  Unfortunately, my body has not adjusted well to this newly-established creativity.  I will walk around all day long in a zombie-like state of exhaustion.  As I sit at my computer, I feel my eyes becoming heaver and heavier and the doctors start sounding like the teacher from old episodes of "Charlie Brown."  (If you don't know what I am talking about, you are probably too young to be reading my blog.)  I count down the reports until I can FINALLY fall into my bed.

Then it happens...every night.  I am wide awake.  It's like my brain just needed my body to lie down to start functioning.  I start thinking of all the stuff I need to get done or the fact that our house is starting to look like a candidate for an episode of "Hoarders."  (In my defense, I am preparing for an epic garage sale...you should come.  Please take my junk.)  I start watching the minutes tick by on the clock and counting down how much time I have left before the kid wakes me.  Luckily, I have a prescription for Xanax (I suffer anxiety, which can be an entire post on its own), but I try to use it sparingly.  Also, by time I decide I need to cave in and take one, it's often late and I worry that my zombie state will be even worse.

Last night--who am I kidding?  It was this morning--I decided to take the Xanax.  Simultaneously, I happened to notice my husband's bottle of Nyquil from his last cold sitting on the counter.  I don't know why it popped into my head, but I suddenly thought if I take the Xanax now and then a shot of Nyquil it might knock me out immediately and I can get a full 4.5 hours of sleep!  And then I thought, "Wow!  You have sunk so low."

This morning I am very thankful I did not take the Xanax with the Nyquil chaser, and I blame the moment of insanity strictly on exhaustion.  It just goes to show though that lack of sleep will make you think crazy things are completely reasonable!  This is why I am NOT allowed to watch any infomercials past 1:00 a.m...anymore.