4 a.m.

Four in the morning
crapped out, yawning (Paul Simon)

Last week, Margo shared this clip with me "Rives on 4 a.m" (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/rives_on_4_a_m.html) It is an engaging exploration of this deadest hour in the dead of the night. Going beyond Rives, I now know that SAA NNE is 4 in the morning in Swahili. Mirabilis Jalapa is a variety of the 4 o'clock plant (its flower opens up nocturnally and closes diurnally) and when a phenomenon is called to your attention, you suddenly take notice of it as it appears and reappears. I'm now far more aware of how often I am awake at 4 a.m.

Faina woke me up last night at 4 a.m. She was in pain, congested, agitated, and despairing. We explored her evolving pharmacopoeia and one of the medications I had been reading about earlier in the day, hydroxyzine was my suggestion. Will Shortz would have noticed it for the same reason I did, having the name of a cookie and the letters XYZ consecutively in its name. It was also first synthesised in the year Faina and I were born. Above all, it is remarkably effective as an antihistamine, analgesic, and a sedative. Everything we needed all in a 20 mg package. Here is what it looks like chemically: 

I held Faina in my arms, helping her calm down, giving the meds some time. On the clock, I saw 4:32, 4:44 and 4:56. After about an hour she drifted off to sleep.

At that point, I was quite wired. I did a load of laundry, answered a few emails, paid a bill, made a donation, and, realizing that I would not likely be waking up before 8:00, took out the garbage. It was a beautiful moonless night. The storm clouds were gone and the stars shone bright. It was easy to spot Ursa Major heading up the driveway and Orion on the way back. It is delightfully quiet at that hour, like being that first astronaut to step out of the LEM, "That's one small step ... " At this point it was game on. I brewed a cup of coffee, fed the cats and checked to see if Jamie was up. She wasn't, but she sounded worse than she did hours ago at bedtime, so I let her go back to sleep and take a sick day.

Later in the day, I took Faina to HoCo General for a blood test. She is getting a transfusion tomorrow, so it was necessary to identify her blood type. Unsurprisingly, it was hard to get a vein. Fortunately, the phlebotomist had patience, skill, and a few tricks up her sleeve. As Faina was mentally preparing herself to be subject to physical abuse, the procedure proved to be minimally painful. Immediately afterward, the room was filled with a collective sigh of relief. Faina made sure to communicate to the woman that her ability to rise to a challenge was recognized. We made our way to the car, barely feeling the 32 degree chill or the 40 MPH winds.