Revenge Bedtime Procrastination

Revenge Bedtime Procrastination

Every day feels the same.

I wake up. I give care. I advocate. I lift.

Then I repeat.

It’s a Groundhog Day kind of life — except there’s no reset button and no lesson waiting neatly at the end. Just the relentless endurance of showing up, again and again, for Maya.

Maya’s full-time needs shape every single hour of my day — medications, therapies, feeds, hoist transfers, comfort. She can’t do anything for herself yet, so I become her arms, her legs, her voice, her constant.

By the time night comes, my body is done.

My shoulders burn. My head throbs. My mind is thick with exhaustion.

I should sleep. I need sleep.

But instead… I stay awake.

This is where revenge bedtime procrastination creeps in — not as rebellion, but as survival.

When Lion Ward finally goes quiet, when Maya is settled and everyone else is asleep, I steal a little time back from a day that has taken everything from me. I don’t do anything useful. I don’t mindlessly scroll or chase dopamine. I just sit there, quietly, looking at photos and videos of my family. Mostly Maya.

Tiny moments frozen in time — her smile, her laugh, the way her eyes light up, the way she used to run, dance, just be. I replay them like proof that this life existed. That she existed beyond hospital walls, medical language, and survival mode.

It hurts 😩 — and yet I can’t stop.

Those moments remind me why I keep going when I have nothing left. They pull me back to love when the day has drained every drop out of me. They’re grief and comfort all tangled together — a constant, soft ache that whispers, this is what we’re fighting for.

I know staying up late will punish me tomorrow.

I know the cycle will repeat.

But at night, this is the only time that feels like it belongs to me — apart from changing Maya’s nappy again at around 1:30–2:00am… and then again at 6:00–6:30am.

Just memory. Love. Longing.

This isn’t laziness.

This is a mother clinging to meaning in the quiet hours — trying to remember who her child is beyond cancer, and who she herself is beyond being a carer.

Because childhood cancer doesn’t just steal health.

It steals time. Sleep. Normality.

It steals the future you imagined.

It leaves parents living the same day over and over, surviving on love and borrowed strength.

And the truth is this:

Childhood cancer doesn’t build resilience or teach lessons — it just takes… and it absolutely sucks. 😢