The Final Revenge of the Evil Dex

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Why am I blogging at one in the morning? It’s the Evil Dex™, of course.

A few months ago I restarted the dex and this had very positive effects on my cancer load. Hooray! However, it’s always been the case that the longer I use it, the more sensitive I get to it. Years ago I started out at 20 mg and this has steadily decreased to 8 mg. By now even this is too much, so we addressed this by switching from 8 mg once a week to 4 mg twice a week.

This worked well at first. Thanks to the smaller dose I could still sleep on dex nights with the help of a big slug of Ambien. But that slowly gave way. Initially the Ambien gave me about six hours of sleep, then five, then four. A few weeks ago it dropped to two, which meant it was having no effect. Even without Ambien I usually snooze for a couple of hours after I’ve been up all night.

Now it’s gotten even worse: I’m literally not sleeping at all until the following night. The dex is just laughing off the Ambien.

So that’s that. I’m already using the highest safe dose of Ambien and it doesn’t work. What’s more, since I’m taking the dex twice a week, I have two sleepless nights per week as well. Blah.

I suppose I can try other sleeping meds, or perhaps some combination of a different med with a return to 8 mg of dex once a week. It can’t hurt, though I doubt it will do much good.

Anyway, that’s why I’m blogging at one in the morning.

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A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

With only days left until December 31, we've raised about half of our $400,000 goal—but we need a huge surge in reader support to close the remaining gap. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your contribution right now matters.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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