On ambien and Joy Bauer

So, you may have heard me reference this little piece of magic that I have recently discovered. Joy Bauer’s “Your Inner Skinny” is a perfect guide to nutrition, in my opinion. She shows you how to get your fruits and vegetables, proteins, fats and carbs all balanced in a healthy way that helps you get skinny. I’ve been following it on and off the past few months (when I’m in town, mostly) and it’s just awesome.

So, when I was at my sister’s house a few weeks ago and saw another Joy Bauer book, I had to flip through it. And I liked what I saw. Decided I needed to get it at some point to have a bigger selection when it came to recipes.

On the next trip to the grocery store, I stopped at first by Borders to see if they might still have the book, and maybe on super sale since the store was closing. One problem: I got there a little too late, as the store was already closed. So I checked Target a couple of doors down, and they didn’t have it. “Oh well,” I said to Jeff, “Maybe Amazon will have it.”

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In seemingly unrelated news, I have been a troubled sleeper since … well, forever. I will wake up if the neighbor down the street sneezes too loudly. If my pinkie toe is not perfectly comfortable, I can’t sleep. I’ve been called the “Princess and the Pea” on more than one occasion. I just always assumed that this was the way it was. Waking up several times a night = normal. Being irritated at myself because I can’t sleep and I need to sleep and I have to get up in 3.5 hours and if I don’t go to sleep RIGHT NOW I’m gonna be in real trouble tomorrow = normal.

Until … a little birdie named Anil introduced me to Ambien.

It was his prescription, and I know I’m not supposed to take other people’s prescriptions. And I told him I did NOT like the idea of sleeping pills. They are addictive, even if just psychologically, and if I think I have trouble sleeping now – imagine adding to that feeling a dependency on a pill and what if I don’t have the pill and I’m addicted to it? (I said all of this before I’d even tried the pill!)

But then, I decided to give it a try. And I had my first good night’s sleep in … well, maybe ever. It was simple. I went to sleep. And then I woke up. No tossing and turning. No mind racing. No “I’m not situated just right and my left knee is not perfect so I’ll never sleep.” And I was rested. And happy.

So I promptly went to my doctor and got my own prescription.

And for the most part, on the nights I take it, I get an awesome amount of sleep, wake up refreshed and ready to face the world.

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But there is that little warning that says if you don’t go right to sleep and you’re on the Ambien, you may have memory loss. This is the drug that infamously contributed to Patrick Kennedy’s Capitol Hill accident. I’ve even seen it firsthand, such as the night that Anil called me and told me he wanted to adopt a dog that I’d mentioned I’d seen at the NC Brewers festival. Not only did I not know he wanted a dog, but I couldn’t understand why he would want to adopt a dog in N.C. – the logistics of getting her to Phoenix would be fairly complicated. At that, he started researching dog breeds and trying to decide which would be the perfect dog for him. I’m a dog lover, so I relished this conversation and spent probably an hour on the phone with him talking about dog options.

 Turns out, he didn’t want to adopt a dog. In fact, the next day he had no memory of the entire conversation. I told him to check his web history and make sure he hadn’t adopted a dog online somehow; he might have a surprise waiting for him when he got home!

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So, one night I took my ambien and apparently I didn’t go straight to bed. It happened to be the same week as I’d been shopping for the Joy Bauer book.  I had no clue anything was out of the ordinary, though, until the next morning when I checked my email and I had an email confirmation from Amazon.

Hmm, what did I order from Amazon? The whole thing felt fairly familiar even though I didn’t have a real memory of it. More like a déjà vu  feeling. So I clicked. And I had to laugh at myself. Because this is what showed up at my house a few days later. Not one Joy Bauer book, but an entire library of them:

So, there you have it, friends. I will now have more nutrition knowledge than I ever asked for. And yes, I could have returned them, but the truth is, they all look awesome and I can’t wait to try them out. But I have learned my lesson – and I try to not be on my phone anymore while I’m waiting for the Ambien to kick in. It could have been worse – I could have adopted a pet …