Dessie - Interview 17

Age at interview: 73

Brief Outline: Dessie feels her sleep has got a lot worse, especially since she lost her husband. She finds she sometimes wakes up in the very early hours of the morning and can't get back to sleep at all. Dessie is very active and likes to keep herself very busy, working in the garden, visiting friends and helping her family.

Background: Widowed, but married again subsequently, one child, retired Secretary

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Dessie has noticed a change in her sleep over the years, particularly since she lost her husband some five years ago. Occasionally she will have a very bad night and only gets about two to three hours sleep. When this happens, she comes downstairs and tries reading for a while, or watching the television, before going back to bed to try and sleep, but often finds she has not slept most of the night.

 

When Dessie has had a bad night, she may find the next day that if she happens to sit down in front of the TV in the afternoon that she falls asleep for about an hour. Dessie would rather not do this because she believes this is wasting time, and she will not go to bed any earlier that night in case she wakes up in the early hours of the morning again.

 

Sometimes Dessie will take a herbal sleeping tablet and she finds this really works well for her, and she wakes up feeling a lot better the next day. Dessie believes sleep is important because she needs sleep to do all the things she does during the day.

Dessie thinks the strict routine surrounding bed and wake times her mother imposed on her as a child has followed her into adulthood.

I would go to sleep about half eleven. Go to bed about half ten ish and have a little read and then I wake up about 6 to half past.

 

And do you sleep right the way through then?

 

Yes.

 

So that’s a good night’s sleep?

 

That’s a good night’s sleep. That’s a good …

 

And how often have you slept like that?

 

Well I think all my life I have been a very early riser and my Mother was very strict with early to bed and early to rise when we were little children and I think that stays with you and I understand that some people are owls and some are larks. And so, I think I am a lark anyway, I get up early all my life.

 

Do you think you are a lark because though that is what you would choose to do or whether that is that is how you were brought up?

 

I think it was how I was brought up. I don’t know any different now.

Dessie has found that a herbal remedy works for her, but she only takes if after she has had a series of bad nights.

But then six hours, you say, is that completely right the way through and you don’t wake up at all?

 

No. So that is a very good night.

 

And how often do you get that?

 

A couple of times every… well what I do is I take a sleeping pill. I take a herbal sleeping pill, one of the Nytols and I take one about every eight or nine days and that gives me a good sleep for that night and may be eight hours even.

 

So you can get a really good night. They work for you?

 

They work for me.

 

As a lot of people say they don’t?

 

I know they don’t, I have recommended them to people and they have said you are rubbish you know, they don’t work for me, and I think well they work for me. And so…

 

That is interesting, so you’ll take that every eight or nine days?

 

Yes.

 

What prompts you to take it?

 

Well because I suppose I am thinking if I don’t get a good night’s sleep soon I am just going to explode with everything around me. And so trivial things like the grass hasn’t been cut, or I haven’t done my ironing and I need to go here and see that person and do this. It all kind of piles in if you haven’t had a good night. That is how it affects me anyway.

 

Mike rarely discussed his broken sleep with friends or family because, although he slept quite badly, it wasn't a concern to him.

So you discussed the fact that you weren’t sleeping?

 

Yes, yes. And I think some of them, said no I don’t sleep very well either my dear. It is age.

 

That wasn’t what you wanted to hear?

 

So there was no sympathy there I thought.

 

It is interesting you saying that that you think it might be linked to age. That is quite a common thing that people say. So sleep is something you talk generally now with friends or family?

 

No. I have a friend I ring up every morning at quarter past eight. She still lives in Birmingham. We have been friends for sixty something years. And I say 'how are you doing' and she will say 'awful'. She will probably use an expletive as well. 'How are you doing', 'oh you know, the same'. Okay right. We have set out day out before us on the phone you know and then sometimes I will ring her and she says 'oh I have been awake since four' and sometimes she will say 'I had a good night, I didn’t wake, you have woken me up. The phone has woken me up' and I feel guilty but so… and I think well this is the pattern of everybody you know, it probably is. Don’t worry about it. It is just another stage of life.

 

It comes with getting older and all this sort of thing?

 

Yes.

Dessie occasionally will have a drink and a snack in the night if she is awake and feeling hungry.

Now this is something that I don’t know whether I am doing right or wrong because I think sitting here in the evening, I think, oh I fancy something. I wonder what’s nice. You know. If there is a box of chocolates open I will dive into that or if I have bought a new type of cereal, I think oh I won’t wait until tomorrow I will have some now. It doesn't matter, I will have some now. And my friend that I ring every morning she says well of course that is comfort eating you know, and I am thinking well what do I need comforting about. I don’t need comforting so why am I eating, but apparently that is what it is called.

 

So if you have something to eat in the evening, is that long before you go to bed?

 

Oh yes it is before I go to bed. I don’t take anything to bed with me to eat.

 

You said you might occasionally have a biscuit if you have been up for a long time in the night?

 

Yes, yes, if I come down or have a drink and a biscuit or I make a piece of toast or …

 

Because do you feel hungry?

 

That is right. Yes.

 

You can’t sleep when you are hungry can you?

 

No, no.

After Dessie's husband died, she had frequent dreams which contained flashbacks to what had happened.

Well we had just moved house and we had got a new doctor but he did very kindly come and see me one afternoon and he said if you need me for anything he said, you know, I am only on the end of the phone.

 

Oh that is good.

 

‘Just give me a bell, and if I am not there my wife will be there and she can relay a message, just ring me’. He said ‘do you need anything at the moment’ and I said 'well no not really' because although I was waking up a lot then, I thought oh this will pass, you know, this too shall pass, you know, and you get through, you through the funeral, you get through the everything else that you have got to get through and after a few months I thought well my sleep isn’t coming back like I hoped it would.

 

Did it improve a bit?

 

It improved a little bit yes, but then of course the things that wake you up are when you have been through that you are thinking could I have done anything else. What about if I had done this or said that? And you just get those sort of thoughts as well that wake you up. And constant dreams, the dreams of being there.

 

Flashbacks?

 

That is right yes.

 

And they can be very vivid can’t they?

 

Yes, so those sort of things do wake you up. But that is nothing anything different to what other people go through when they have lost someone or they have had bad traumas in their lives. 

 

Even though her sleep had improved a bit since her husband had died, Dessie still found herself waking up remembering what she had been through.

Well we had just moved house and we had got a new doctor and she did very kindly come and see me one afternoon and he said if you need me for anything he said, you know, I am only on the end of the phone.

 

Oh that is good.

 

Just give me a bell, and if I am not there my wife will be there and she can relay a message, just ring me. He said do you need anything at the moment and I said no not really because although I was waking up a lot then, I thought oh this will pass, you know, this too shall pass, you know, and get through, you get through the funeral, you get through the everything else that you have got to get through and after a few months I thought oh well my sleep isn’t coming back like I hoped it would.

 

Did it improve a bit?

 

It improved a little bit yes, but then of course the things that wake you up are when you have been through that you are thinking could I have done anything else. What about if I had done this or said that. And you just get those sort of thoughts as well that wake you up. And constant dreams, dreams of being there.

Her husband's illness and subsequent death led Dessie to have many sleepless nights as she lay awake worrying about the future.

Well when my husband wasn’t sleeping very well and he got all his medication tablets you see and I think he understood that he couldn’t take anything else, so he thought he would try Nytol because they are only a herbal. And he tried them and they worked for him.

 

So he wasn’t sleeping well either and he tried them?

 

And he tried them and they worked for him.

 

So he wasn’t sleeping well either?

 

No.

 

And that is what prompted you to try them as well?

 

Yes. yes. But not until after he died. I think the trauma of having somebody die and going through all that bereavement and grief procedure I think that does keep you awake, and whether your body gets into that pattern then I think you know, this is okay, I can be awake when it isn’t really.

 

So you noticed a change?

 

Yes, really immediately he … it all started to happen badly. Then you are lying awake thinking well what’s going to happen, how is he going to be and…

 

Thinking about the future?

 

That is right yes. 

Dessie used to get up with her husband, who was ill with cancer, for a cup of tea in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep.

When I have a good night’s sleep I think oh that was absolutely wonderful. Why can’t that happen every night. Is it because I am getting older I don’t get eight hours or what.

 

Did you use to have eight hours?

 

Oh yes, yes.

 

And when do you think it started to change?

 

I think it started to change when my husband started to become poorly. And he would be awake a lot in the night and I would get up and make a cup of tea for us.

 

How long was he poorly for?

 

Actually he was poorly for about three or four years, but he was only really very poorly for the last year of his life. He had cancer.

 

I see, you used to care for him?

 

Well I am not a very good carer. I am a hopeless nurse but…

 

Why do you say that?

 

He used to say would death be any easier! (laughter)

 

He had a good sense of humour?

 

Yes. I am a hopeless nurse. I lose patience with people. If they have got a broken leg or something like that, you can actually see it and you know how long the healing is going to be, but when somebody says 'I am not well today' and I think 'oh gosh what can I do about this'?

 

So you used to make cups of tea in the night?

 

That is right yet. And get up and we had a great big kitchen, we lived in the [country] it was a big cottage and we had a great big kitchen and we used to go down and it had two easy chairs in the kitchen so the dog was in between us in the basket so we could just stay up all night really.

 

So you used to come down and sit up all night?

 

Hm.

 

So he couldn’t sleep?

 

No.

 

And that used to wake you up?

 

That’s right.

 

Did he wake up did he, or did you just wake up, were you aware of him being…?

 

I was just awake and aware of him being awake, and he’d try and creep downstairs sometimes but you are still aware of it aren’t you.

 

So you came down and joined him?

 

So I would come down and join him and have a little chat about this and that and that is all I am good at as far as nursing goes!