The nurse left at 5 pm.

The nurse left at 5 pm. If you can even call her a nurse- she ensures I swallow my drugs and then leaves. I doubt a monkey could do that but I’m sure one man could be paid minimum wage to watch 10 monitors and make sure it gets done. I had always disagreed with those things but lately they seem to make sense. I can sleep a full 6 hours now. The doctors call it post traumatic- but honestly I was having these problems before, I had just never been diagnosed until now and with my "back packing" trip through most of Iraq it's easy to get it confused.

After I wake up the nurse comes in to remind me that I need to take my meds. Those usually wake me up and get me going for the day. At 2 she reminds me again; those give me an appetite like you wouldn’t believe. At 8 I take my last ones- she leaves me a note for those, those are the ones that make a robot dream. She comes and goes throughout the day, she clocks in and out at will, she doesn’t really have a schedule but she's always there when I need her.

The nurse hasn’t been doing this too long, I can tell when she makes mistakes and she can tell when I call her out on them. We both laugh but she always gives me that raised eyebrow look telling me I should "watch it, sir!". We'll see how long she lasts, who knows how many more there will be after her. This just started, who knows how long this will last, if it ends up being long term I wonder if she'll still be my nurse.

I don’t plan on going on past the required amount of time taking these damn things. I mean I don’t need them, I do like them, but I refuse to be that person who you hear about being addicted. Smokes couldn’t do it, alcohol barely has a hold on me so there is no way these little guys are going to break my record. But for the sake of the nurse I will do the bare minimum I have to, I barely know her but I would hate for her to feel she didn’t do a good job and failed me.

This has progressed to a level I wasn’t expecting, it started with me just trying to get some extra money from the VA. My buddies were all getting in on it, who can’t use an extra $300 a month, that was going to be my beer money. Now the nurse won’t even let me drink- well, she lets me squeeze in a few drinks a week, but not without stern warning on how many years of my life each one of those drops are taking from me. She's a little dramatic if you ask me, but no one ever asks me for a proficiency report on her. She freelances from what I can tell, though I never hear her talking about other patients.

The transformation when the nurse clocks out is amazing. It is to me, at least. She just laughs about it most of the time. At 5 sharp she turns into a whole different person, so much so that I think I’m even nicer to her. The nurse leaves at 5 and that's when she turns into my wife.