I haven't slept in two days. I called my pdoc this morning (6AM) and left a message for her to call me back. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I hope I sounded urgent. The plan was to tell her the trial with the you're crazy so you need antipsychotic medicine mood stabilizer was a big time fail and that I was going to stop that and put my focus on the sleep issues. I planned to ask her for a prescription for immediate usage (Ambien, Lunesta, etc), and then later a transferral to a duplicate anti-depressive med that also can be used as a sleep aid. My focus right now is not long term. I don't care about what I'm taking to stave off something that might or might not happen in 6 weeks. If I don't get some sleep, I am going to go crazy.
So while I'm bumming around my apartment at all hours of the night, I was doing all sorts of random things. My cat was painfully aware that I was keeping her up well past her needed hours of beauty sleep, so she was very vocal about wanting to be fed for the inconvenience. While she was eating I noticed she had a small clump of hair sticking off her neck, so I went to grab her hairbrush and sat to start grooming her while she was eating. She's almost 20 years old so she can't bend and tuck as well as she used to and gets mats in her hair that I often have to 
dislodge and brush out. I figured this one on her neck was no different. I go to give a little tug to see if it has already been set free or if I need to settle in for work and it's pretty pliable so I tugged a little more (cat's still eating, not even paying attention to what I'm doing). Only then do I see this huge rush of blood come pouring out of a cyst she has on her neck. The thing gets drained every 6 months or so, keeps growing back but is always filled with this clear fluid so I was horrified when a little tug of her hair opened it up to a sea of red! I could see all the way into her neck. It was disgusting. So she's bleeding all over her collar, my hands and my kitchen floor, completely oblivious to my panic. She didn't even move from her meal. Of course it's like 1AM and I am freaking out! Do I take her to the emergency vet? Can I wait 6 hours for my vet to open? Ended up getting some gauze and that self sticky wrap and rigged a somewhat successful bandage of the wound to keep her away from it til I could get her to the vet. She's there right now getting fixed up. They are going to attempt to remove the growth, but they have to do it without anesthesia since she is so old. He said even if I told him not to remove it he was still going to have to stitch up her neck. Geez. He looked a little concerned when he saw her wound, but didn't say anything to me to make me think that I should be worried. I'm too sensitive. It's probably nothing. Well, not nothing. I'm guessing at least a $300 bill.
dislodge and brush out. I figured this one on her neck was no different. I go to give a little tug to see if it has already been set free or if I need to settle in for work and it's pretty pliable so I tugged a little more (cat's still eating, not even paying attention to what I'm doing). Only then do I see this huge rush of blood come pouring out of a cyst she has on her neck. The thing gets drained every 6 months or so, keeps growing back but is always filled with this clear fluid so I was horrified when a little tug of her hair opened it up to a sea of red! I could see all the way into her neck. It was disgusting. So she's bleeding all over her collar, my hands and my kitchen floor, completely oblivious to my panic. She didn't even move from her meal. Of course it's like 1AM and I am freaking out! Do I take her to the emergency vet? Can I wait 6 hours for my vet to open? Ended up getting some gauze and that self sticky wrap and rigged a somewhat successful bandage of the wound to keep her away from it til I could get her to the vet. She's there right now getting fixed up. They are going to attempt to remove the growth, but they have to do it without anesthesia since she is so old. He said even if I told him not to remove it he was still going to have to stitch up her neck. Geez. He looked a little concerned when he saw her wound, but didn't say anything to me to make me think that I should be worried. I'm too sensitive. It's probably nothing. Well, not nothing. I'm guessing at least a $300 bill. It's now 12 and still no call back from the pdoc. I am not having another sleepless night. So after talking with my aunt a little (she's a doctor and is always someone I can get advice from), she suggested just going to my family doc and getting the prescription sleep aid there. I got the last open spot at 1:30. Thank you, Jesus.
I am so deliriously tired I go from barely being able to focus, to swearing that thing just moved, to feeling as alert as if I had just woken up from 8 hrs of sleep. It's very disorienting. But even when I get so tired I don't know if I can stand up, I know if I went to lay down in bed I wouldn't sleep. I can't explain it. There is a switch in my brain that somebody kicked on to "AWAKE" and damned if my brain didn't do everything it was told to.
