Cyclical

Today is day 9, not day 2, and yet something happened last night that I associated completely with my chemo treatments, which have been coming on Fridays for three months now: I couldn't sleep.

Granted, I finally dragged myself out of bed at 11:20 yesterday morning Austin time, but still, I wasn't really tired enough to go to bed last night even around 2:00am when I went, so I read for awhile, and then I turned off my light for awhile and lay there in the bed and thought about things, wide awake, and then I turned on my headlamp and finished my book, which I did at 5:40am, and then I finally drifted off, only to awake again about 4 ½ hours later. And I was really awake, so I showered and dressed, drew on my eyebrows, and made some decaf. Because clearly, I'm not having any trouble staying up.

Here is what I thought: Has my body accustomed itself to this seven-day schedule so much that it followed it even in the absence of my drugs? Can we recognize, at a cellular level, a pattern of that length? I frequently wonder, with the dogs, how much they know to expect during a routine that spans several days instead of just one day. For example, did they know, after several months, that Mondays meant they would sit in the back of the car to Woodinville, then get to go to the park? Could they, in some way, anticipate the activities of the day, know what the day would comprise? Now that riding is Wednesdays, are they confused? I know they are creatures of habit—at least their stomachs are—but does that extend longer than 12 hours?

Also, when was "the week" as a unit of time created? I'm assuming sometime with the rise of Judaism . . . (Of course, Wikipedia is full of interesting information on that last question, including various non-seven-day weeks in history, and here it seems that I was right about the Jews . . .)

I will also point out that it's now noon, and I'm the only one out of bed (although C did make herself some coffee about 1 ½ hours ago). I don't really know what that means. Better go have some more decaf.