The longest I’ve been awake for is about 35 hours, and even by that point I was genuinely delirious. Perhaps it kicked in quicker because my brain is so unused to being kept awake for that long. It was when my partner was in labor. During the bus ride home, at about 6am (I vaguely recall someone getting on with a coffee in hand, but I’d lost all track and meaning of time by that point) I didn’t know who I was or what was going on. I was hearing conversations all around me but the bus was almost empty. I saw people sitting on the seats across from me who weren’t there. I reached for a thick book I could see under the seat in front of me which turned out to be a fixed steel beam.

So 11 days. That’s just crazy. That’s torture.