Why you should LISTEN to the 10 hours of warnings cited in Ambien commericials

Okay, so todays My Kids Might Be Martians post reminded me of a story. An AMBIEN story. You know ~ that little, tiny, harmless pill that doctors gleefully prescribe to their sleep-deprived, insomniac patients. Like me. This happened 4 years ago and I was asleep so I have no memory of the nights events so the following story is all hearsay from my children and my aunt who ended up babysitting me half the night before calling my husband to the rescue. So, according to all of them; the story goes something like this:

My children and I were visiting my aunt Jill and I had forgotten my insomnia medicine at home so she gave me one of hers. Just one ~ an itty-bitty Ambien. I usually take mine about an hour before I actually go to bed so I did the same here. I swallowed it a mili-second before she yelled at me "don't take it until your in bed!". No worries I told her. It takes a while to kick in. How the hell did I know that? I've never taken it before. But surely it works just like mine right? Right? Well, telling her that is my very last memory of the night. I woke up the next morning, fully rested, in my own bed. At my own house. How the hell did I get there!? Did I drive here? The commercial warns about all these scary things that can happend to people who take Ambien: driving, cooking, sleepwalking, etc. So I'm freaking out. Where is everybody? Where are my kids? Did I drive with my kids? Where is my car? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? My husband wasn't there. My daughter wasn't there. Jill wasn't there but I found Dakota asleep in his own bed. Did I drive home with him in the car?! He was at Jill's house with me. Why did she let me drive home?! With Dakota in the car?!?! All this shit is running through my head. A second ago I was at Jill's house with my kids ~ I pop an Ambien and BAM ~ its 12 hours later and I'm 20 miles away at my own house! Anyway, Dakota wakes up and tells me his version of the night: "Mom! You wouldn't go to sleep! You kept yelling at us that there were homeless kids on the porch and you needed to feed them and you started cooking top ramen! There were no kids on the porch Mom!" What? Homeless kids? Top ramen? WTF?!?! How did we get home? "Aunt Jill had to call dad to come get you because you kept cooking more packages of top ramen and Raye tried to get you to bed and you broke her nose!" OMG! Where's my daughter? "She stayed at Aunt Jill's Mom! Don't you remember anything?!" I have to say my son was PISSED! "You wouldn't go to bed! We tried to put you to bed for FIVE HOURS!" FIVE HOURS?! Where's dad? Where's Jordan? "idk". Is Raye okay? "idk".

Well, 4 years later and I still remember NOTHING. Needless to say, I have NEVER, EVER taken another Ambien EVER again! I am soooooo thankful that I was babysat by someone. To this day I am scared to death of what might have happened if I had been by myself and I have never, ever take warnings of possible side-effects, of any medication I take lightly again. In my opinion, even though only a percentage of patients precribed Ambien have these kinds of side-effects, I think Ambien should be pulled off the market. This was fucking SCARY! My children did not understand that I was ASLEEP. My daughter didn't come home for two days. She told me I kicked her in the nose when she was trying to get me into bed! Dakota can still remember the exact date this happened ~ he is traumatized for life! I think I am too!