How is it November already? It really snuck up on me this year. October was pretty much a blur, and then Halloween was over in the blink of an eye. Needless to say, I will not even be attempting NaBloPoMo in 2018. I completely forgot about my annual 30-day webpage update challenge until yesterday, honestly, and by then it was already the second day of November. Far too late to post anything legitimate for the 1st. So the pressure to flood the internet with any and all of my innermost thoughts for a month is off the table this year. That’s a relief! There are far too many other, more significant things to worry about. 2018 has been quite a mess so far and I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Mostly my health because my body is trying to drive me insane. Luckily it doesn’t seem to be killing me with cancer or some other degenerative disease (at least not that I’m aware of), but I’m still having a rough time. I’m simply not sleeping properly and it’s negatively affecting every facet of my life. In an effort to fix that, I have a second sleep study scheduled for next week so hopefully at least some answers will be forthcoming. At an appointment last week my neurologist said that he didn’t want to just throw more medications at the problem until he has more data. He wants the sleep study to check for “everything,” whatever that means. I’m sure that the bottom line is that I will have another thoroughly miserable experience, but I’ll happily endure it if that means getting one step closer to normality. Not only have I not gotten a good night’s sleep in maybe years, but there have been more tangible losses as well. I’ve missed out on more things than I can count. For example, on Tuesday when I woke up in the early hours of the afternoon I panicked. I had missed yet another day of work due to my unknown medical issues and, in addition, I was literally sleeping away the precious hours before a couple of rapidly approaching events. First of all, Halloween was less than 24 hours away and I had done very little to prepare for the annual chili cook-off at work. It’s one of my favorite days of the year and I hadn’t even made my own chili yet. But that was minor in comparison to what was coming next. I was supposed to fly to Orlando on Thursday for the Wine & Dine half marathon weekend, but how could I possibly justify that? I’ve missed way too much work already, my sleep pattern has been erratic at best, and my life in general has just been too chaotic recently. I couldn’t perceive any scenario where going on vacation, even to Walt Disney World, was a good idea right now. So I made the hard decision to cancel the trip I’d been looking forward to all year. I’m disappointed to not be there this weekend enjoying myself, but I’m actually feeling much more relaxed here at home where I can rest and catch up on what I’ve been missing. Nothing is 2018 has been easy so far, but I’m hopeful that better days are on the horizon.