Day 99 - The Power of Sleep

Sleep is the best healer, so they say. And I think I have to agree that it's true.

Having slept a good deal of yesterday, and most of last night, cleo woke this morning much refreshed. We had to cancel our physio with James because we had no car, but that was no problem. By lunchtime today, when I went to collect my car from the garage, cleo again went to bed to rest and slept again till about 5pm.

All the lack of sleep and worry from the last couple days seems to have ebbed away in those relaxed and restful hours. She looked a different person when she got up this evening, and I have to report that the laughter was back. There is no better indication of the mental state of a person, in my view, than the way they laugh.

I wrote a poem once about sleeping, which I have used here before, but I think it's worth another look:

Sleep, sweet cleo
Fear not
Your darkest dreams.
For I will guard you
When it seems
Defences fall away.
Relax and rest
Until your mind
Has purged the worst
Of thoughts placed there
By those who do not care.

And I will wait.
As cleo sleeps
I marvel at her innocence,
And kiss her lips.
She turns, and sighs
So fragile like a child
Just born.
Sleeps safely as I
Hold her in my arms, this
My duty till the dawn

If sleeping for a few hours can create that change then I will ensure that she is more rested in the future than she has been up till now. I would rather spend half the hours with her knowing she is as contented as she seemed this evening, and let her sleep the rest, because it would appear that sleep just may be the best healer of all.

She is beginning to accept that she needs more sleep than before the stroke, because of the recuperation process she is going through, and which, by the last 24 hours evidence, happens better when asleep than awake.