Hallucinating hallucinations

As most of you know, I've got a touch of insomnia that gets worse when my period looms on the horizon.  With that being said, I will be starting sometime in the next week, give or take a day or two.  Last night was a dreadful night's sleep.  I've come the realization that I get about 2.5 weeks of good, solid, sometimes 7-8 hours of sleep a night...per month.  Then the remainder of the month is spent either me angrily rolling around unable to get comfortable or simply angrily lying there unable to get back to sleep.

This morning was one of those days.  Bummer.  Total bummer - I hate these weeks of the month.

I tossed and turned from about 2:something until I got out of bed at 5:30.  I was laying on the couch, TV turned on with it's sole purpose of background noise while I play a game on my phone.  My concentration was broken by the sound of the hubs getting out of bed.  He's a heavy walker. Bedroom door opens and he mutters "'Morning, hun."  I sleepily respond with a single "hi".  Minutes pass and I realize that he's either being super quiet or I hallucinated the whole damn thing.  This wouldn't be the first time that I've hallucinated a person.  Yes, I just said that; those two words were just in the same sentence: hallucinated + person = scary.  First time ever was last month in May.  Shall we explore the depths of obscurity also known as my crazy dome?  Let's proceed:

1. A little more than 6 weeks ago, the hubs and I spent the night at my mom's house so we wouldn't have to wake up so bloody early to head out to the Melanoma walk.  I had a terrible night's sleep. I was bouncing from the couch, to the recliner, to the love seat, squishing in next to Tony then finally back to the recliner where I tried to finish off the remaining hours of night.  Around 5:00am, I was woken up by (what I thought was) my dad nudging the chair I was sleeping in and then he continued walking down the hall to the computer room.  He didn't look back, just kept on walking.  I was stunned and almost blurted out "What the fuck, dad!?" but I didn't want to wake Tony, or anyone else for that matter, with my grumpy morning voice.  I sat and stared into the computer room, confused at what just happened...then I heard him in bed, in his room, that is not near the computer room.  I later asked my mom if she had went to the bathroom around that time and she confirmed - but it's not like my parents look at all similar.  She's a woman; he's a man. It was his walk, he was wearing the same thing he went to sleep in and he sort of dissipated once in the computer room.  Weird.  I know.
2. About two weeks ago I was asleep on the couch.  This is a nightly event - I get in my little nook on the chaise part of the couch and typically within 20 minutes in a reclined position, I will be passed the hell out.  I was woken up by the couch moving; it's (what I thought was) the hubs getting up to go to the bathroom.  I open my eyes ever so slightly and I see him zombie-walk into the den towards a bathroom and I swear I hear the sound of the toilet lid.  I stay awake because I know when he is done, he will let me know it's 'bed-time' and then we will both zombie walk to bed.  Though, it sounds as if he's fallen asleep in there!  I can hear heaving breathing coming from the den/bathroom.  I start to get up to go find out what the heck he's doing and as I position my body to get off of the couch, I am startled to see him fast asleep lying next to me.  

And then comes this morning that sent me in a whirlwind panic.  I realized that I didn't hear the toilet flush from the hubs going to the bathroom, I looked up and saw the bedroom door shut.  I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that this time I was awake; I couldn't brush this off as being in la-la-land between dreaming and drowsy.  I started thinking that I am losing my mind - I saw my husband, he talked to me and I answered back!  All while he was actually in bed asleep!!  Holy shit!  Envisions of padded room and dirty hair fills my mind.

Then, I went to the dark side and immediately thought I've got a major tumor in my brain that is causing hallucinations.  Luckily - the logical side of my crazy brain jumped in.  'Um....Amber, why don't you just ask hubs if he was awake?'  Good idea, logic!  And he confirmed, he got up to go pee and then went back to bed.  I was too tired from not sleeping and too focused on my silly candy crush game to realize that the toilet had flushed and he went right on back to bed.  

I'm fine with two dream-like hallucinations, that's a 'couple of hallucinations'.  Three would definitely push it over the edge into a 'few hallucinations'.  Even as of right now, that has been the best part of my day - knowing that I am not completely crazy.

It's kismet, I tell ya!

Today started out just like (almost) any other other Sunday.  I woke up unusually early...which is always SUPER fun!  Although, waking up at 2:45am because you are blistering hot is not fun!  I got out of bed after an hour lying there, wide awake, only to to be greeted by incessant 'clicking' noises in our walls that our G-damn apartment can't figure out how to fix after years of us living here!  Anyways...

The hubs and I ran our usual Sunday errands and stopped by a phone store to help the hubs out with a storage issue on his cell.  I sat in the car for a little bit finishing my 'candy crush' game (that I am TOTALLY addicted to, by the way), though it started getting a touch hot with the windows rolled up so I took off for an air-conditioned shelter.

My eyes, drawn to my silly phone, playing my silly game, were immediately fixated on one man.  I tried to not make it obvious as I am sure he's been getting stared at lately.  I know the feeling (except with my back turned).  You can always feel someone looking at you, even in an extremely dark room.  He had recent surgery done on his right cheek near his nose.  Still swollen.  Still purplish.  Still, I'm sure, very painful.  He had been diagnosed with Melanoma three weeks prior.

This is where it gets weird...at least to me:  

As I was walking to kitchen from the living room, I glanced at myself in a mirror and it dawned on me (I think I subconsciously expected this), I am wearing my "Fuck Cancer" shirt!!  Whoah, I know, trip out on that shit!!  Or should I say: trip out on that SHIRT??  But seriously, isn't that sort of kismet?  A chance encounter?  Fate?  I met someone in passing with my cancer, while wearing my cancer shirt?

O-kay, o-kay...I agree it might be a little far fetched, but I don't wear this shirt often.  The last time I wore this was on the Melanoma walk in May.  Prior to that...??  I don't know, it might have been...jesus, I don't know - maybe when it was lying on me prior to "the" surgery (almost 1.5 years ago) for a photo op?

In any sense, cancer shirt or no cancer shirt, I still ran into another Club Melanoma Member - a recent one at that.  Maybe I wore it because I...I don't know...    It happened for a reason, that's all I can say.  I gave him my business card and asked him to look me up on Facebook so I can add him to BAMW.  For those of you that don't know, it's a group on Facebook called: Bad Ass Melanoma Warriors - we're close to 800 members, if not more.  If you're in the 'Club' and want to be involved in BAMW, let me know and we'll get ya' set up.

Ohhhh....I do hope he contacts me...I want him to know that he's not alone.  We have a roar and we have an unfortunate new member to add to the roar, but the roar is still there and it's getting louder.

Missing Melanoma May

The month of May has officially ended...o-kay, fine - it 'officially ended' 10 days ago.  Kind of sad that now I don't have the additional excuse to bug loved ones about Melanoma.  So weird that half of the year is almost over.  Good lord time flies!  This is what I have accomplished - or at least tried to accomplish during the month of May.

• I emailed the Angels baseball team and asked them to put something together like the Cardinals did (as shown in the below photo).  I went to the Angels' website and emailed the only email that I was able to find.  I explained that I felt that the entire MLB should follow suit pushing awareness due to the amount of time that the players, managers, field team and of course us fans spend in the sun.  And you know what?  I actually got a response on the same day!  Was it one that wanted?  Welllll......yes and no.  Yes - because I wanted ANY response and No - he forwarded it on to another person and I haven't heard anything else from it.  Boo!  Oh well, I've saved that email and I will start bugging them prior to next season so they can cut out a night game dedicated to Melanoma and hopefully hand over a percentage of proceeds to well deserved research.

• I emailed one of my favorite websites (theBerry.com) after they posted a collage of photos...sunburn photos.  I couldn't stay silent after the sunburns, especially since it was during Melanoma May.  They have a daily collage of motivation stuff geared towards working out and I asked them to put something up geared towards NOT getting sunburns since so many young women are diagnosed.  No response.  Maybe I shouldn't have rocked down to depressing avenue in the email.  Oh well! 
• The hubs and I did our first walk!  I am embarrassed to say that I was sore for two days after.  Hey - I don't really exercise, but it made me feel like I should.  Baby steps in the right direction, right?  Next year will be much bigger and I will actually fundraise and ask people to come along! 
• Every Monday at work I send out a motivating email to the office.  Kind of like a 'get your head out the cloud called Monday and look towards the bright sun called success' sort of email.  I changed it up to a Motivational Melanoma Monday email and I helped some of my office family learn some stuff about the asshole more commonly known as The Beast.  I also sent out my biopsy video which is terribly embarrassing to me. 

So, all in all, this May was a success!  Looking forward to next year :)