Sleepwalking

Two nights ago, the day after Christmas, I stayed up late, going to bed after midnight, about 1 am. I am usually a pretty solid sleeper, and I had taken a Tylenol PM to help, but I was awakened at about 2:30 by a disturbing sound. I thought a neighbor was banging on the wall repeatedly. Investigating, I quickly found that my sixteen year old son was making the noise. He was lying unconscious on the bathroom floor and flailing against the door. I was frightened when I tried to waken him and found I could not. Panicked, I called 911 and followed their instructions. Did he throw up? Could I get him on his back? Would I unlock the front door? In about fifteen minutes, the paramedics arrived and asked a lot of annoying questions. Could he have sneaked out and gotten high or gotten drunk? What drugs do you take? On and on. Nothing very reassuring, all very accusing, I thought. I was elated when, as they were out in the cold, loading him into the ambulance, he sat up, seemed to recognize me, and we had a brief conversation. Later, I was to find out that he was still asleep, and did not remember any of it. The way he remembered it, he went to bed, went to sleep, and woke up in the ambulance.

The emergency room was like I've seen it before. A beehive of inactivity. Hurry up and wait. We spent more than four hours there, accomplishing blood and urine tests, and a CAT SCAN, the need for which I questioned. The doctor had fast answers, and, despite our not having insurance, I felt forced to agree. It was still unclear if he had fallen because he was unconscious or if he had become unconscious because he bonked his head. He might have a brain tumor, or bleeding on the brain, and the scan would clear up such questions. I said "okay" reluctantly.

Talking it over later, I was reminded that he had a history of sleepwalking, which I had forgotten. There had been one incident when he was nine, where he had fallen, and had just lay down and slept there until his mother had picked him up.

I remembered when I was young that there were times my parents would tell me "Michael, you walked in your sleep again last night", and I was always put out that they didn't waken me, because I never remembered anything about it. They said it was "bad" to waken a sleepwalker.

Studying it online, yesterday, I found that it isn't actually bad, just very difficult. No kidding.

Anyway, the scan showed he was alright, which I was pretty sure was the case, since, once he had awakened, he was normally lucid. Today, the bump on his head hurt, but he's fine.

I have been, however, a wreck. I kept getting up every hour last night to check on him, despite my telling him not to worry: "After all, the last time you fell was nine years ago" I told him, but it didn't reassure me!

*sigh*

The joys of parentood!