I am exhausted. My daughter's insomnia is getting out of hand. It woke me just after 1 AM last night. Then, I heard her use the bathroom 3 times in a 45 minute period, which kept waking me. BTW, I don't think she has a UTI or anything; I think she just thinks about going and then feels she has to go. Her restroom habits have been completely normal today, and even though she is getting shy about her private areas, she always lets me know if she has some issue there. One time, she actually got a yeast infection (I knew it because of the complaints of itching) and another an actual UTI (which she complained about). Once I go to sleep for the night, I'm a light sleeper. If I get woken from my sleep, it is usually hours before I can fall back to sleep.

I finally curled up on the futon this morning and just managed to fall asleep, when my daughter came in, completely awake (this was around 9 AM, a normal wakeup time). Maybe I got 30 minutes there.

I had some emails to deal with this morning, and I also sent off some secretarial type resumes to the school district where my husband works. My BIL has an aunt very high up in the chain of command in that school district, and I told her, things were desperate, please pass my stuff on to HR, and she said she would. I also asked her if she knew of any internal low-stress jobs she could get me into because of the ulcer & my daughter (didn't mention any MI issues). Stress does not cause ulcers like they used to think; usually they are caused by a combo of a bacterial infection and use of NSAIDs, but that being said, if you have an ulcer, they do believe stress can make it worse. So we'll see. I did notice at least all my submissions are screening straight through to HR now instead of taking weeks a piece, so maybe she helped out there. It would be a job much more low paying than my degree; I have an M.S. in Cell & Molecular Biology. But half the time now, when I've tried to work in the field, I'm just not happy. Sometimes, the meds make my hands tremor a bit, and it is no good for running DNA or protein gels. You have to have an extremely steady hand, particularly for the protein gels (my area of study); those run vertically, are super-thin and require delicately handling of the gel after running (sometimes overnight if it's a large gel & big protein), you can split those things apart in a second. Some of the processes involve very intense multi-step staining where you are having to pick this delicate gel up and into and out of tons of different solutions. The staining can literally take all day, and then you hope you don't rip it in the UV viewer. Plus, my brain just can't follow/process the minute science stuff any more. I don't know if it's because I've forgotten it since I've been away from the field since 2004, or if it is related to the meds. A little of both I think.

But even a clerical job paying $20,000-25,000 a year would let us keep our house, and I let BIL's aunt know that. Also, I am sure she has the up and up on which principals are easier to work with than others; she goes around school to school often during the school year; my husband sees her many times at the high school where he works.

I am exhausted though. I did manage another nap, maybe close to 2 hours in the late morning. If my FitBit is to be believed, I got a grand total of 4 hours 32 minutes of sleep since 9 PM last night, and boy, do I feel like it.

I'm a bit nauseous as well, probably from the lack of sleep. I also tend to get nauseous near this time in my menstrual cycle, but I'll keep an eye on it. If it doesn't go away, I'm calling up the gastro-doc ASAP.

My pdoc told me I could take 5-10 mg melatonin as well to help with sleep, so I think I am going to try that tonight. I didn't get much sleep the night before.

And what to do with my daughter...hubby lets her stay up too late, but then, she still can't sleep, she'll be awake at 5 AM in the morning, not able to sleep and panicky because she has school the next day or a playdate or something. The pediatrician said to give her some melatonin, but of course, my husband is against it. School starts August 15. We've got to get her on a working school schedule.