I have a very busy wife who is always out on work so a lot of the time, mostly weekdays, I sleep alone. It is something I have gotten used to and don’t really mind, and falling asleep isn’t a big problem for me, whether I have a bed mate or not.
Sleeping alone has its advantages, especially during the hot summer season, but it also has its cons. This article is about that one night when I was sleeping by my lonesome and woke up with a cramp, and the realizations that came while I was dealing with the mind-numbing pain without anyone beside me to wake up and ask help from.
Earlier that night, I had tried adding a new twist to my daily kettlebell exercise and I felt a bit of an effect on my body, which I thought would just go away after the unused muscles got used to it. However, at around 3am, I was awakened and had an urge to stretch. I had just started a lazy stretch while on my back, in between changing sleeping positions, when a cramp struck my calf.
The pain was instantly recognizable and although it was super intense, the type that made me want to cry, I knew it wasn’t going to be serious or fatal. I knew what I needed to do to relieve the pain, and having someone beside me that I could wake up and ask for an assist would definitely have been helpful, but I was alone, helpless, and in intense pain. The foot of our bed couldn’t provide me the leverage to push my foot against it to stretch my cramping calf muscles and I was in too much pain to sit up and pull on my toes.
I was helpless and basically couldn’t do anything about the cramp so all I could do was to wait out the pain. It was during those few minutes that felt like an hour that I realized that being no longer a spring chicken who often sleeps alone, I need a panic button protocol for times like these, when whatever hits me in the middle of the night is more serious than the cramp that was literally making me cry in pain as I had no choice but to wait for it to subside.
Although the pain was making me literally cry, I knew it wasn’t life threatening so I was just waiting it out. Reaching for my phone was difficult because of the pain, but I’m pretty sure I could’ve gotten hold of it. If my situation was serious and I needed to get to an emergency room or at least someone to help me, I realized that I didn’t even know who to call. I can’t call my wife because she is not on the same island and can’t help me. If I call a housemate, say my daughter, or our helper, will they answer or are their phones on ‘do not disturb’ mode? Do I call an ambulance? If one does come, who will open the locked gate and doors to let them in?
The cramp went away after some time, and I was able to stretch my calf for a bit more relief and got back to sleeping, but that near death simulation made me realize just how unprepared I am for such an eventuality. So unprepared that I didn’t even have the number of the city’s DRRM hotline saved on my phone, which ironically has their HQ and emergency vehicles parked just a few blocks from my house.
After that experience, I told myself that I need to be able to know what to do and who to call. This includes talking to those who intend to call that they are on my panic list, so they can set their phones not to automatically block my number if I do call in the middle of the night.
I remembered this anecdote and its realizations because I recently lost a Tito to a sudden and massive heart attack. It happened while he was in the car, and he even had a driver with him who rushed to the hospital, but he still didn’t make it. While I am a believer that if it’s your time, it’s your time, it still doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a fire extinguisher or emergency protocols at home. More often than not, when something happens, we can still do something, so it’s better to have a plan than to start panicking and losing time because no plan was prepared beforehand.
Those who know they can count on their roommates have a little more leeway when it comes to making such plans. The rest of us sometimes sleep alone may have a little bit more to consider, but it shouldn’t be a big deal as long as you know who to call in case of night time emergencies.*
