Every day, I hold onto the hope that one day I will sleep
normally again. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since early October! A good
night’s sleep is one thing you just don’t think about (and take for granted, in
my case) before surgery. I have a handy gadget that estimates the amount of
sleep I’m getting at night. It’s called a Fitbit. And the Fitbit has been
telling me that I’m averaging 2.5 hours of sleep a night. I’m waking up
anywhere from 10-35 times a night. Seriously?
After the first surgery, I “slept” pretty well in the hospital (when
they let me sleep)…more than likely because I was on all sorts of happy juice/pills.
When I got home I entered into this whole love/hate relationship with our bed.
I can really only sleep in one of two positions: my back with my legs raised,
or my left side with my PAO-ed leg resting on a body pillow. Once I am in one
these positions…it takes about 15 minutes to switch to the other. If I sleep on
my back for too long my upper back ends up KILLING me. I have to use all of my
energy and switch to my side. A couple hours later my leg is so stiff and sore
that I have to switch back to my back…which still hurts from lying on it
earlier in the night. Preposterous. For the first 10-12 weeks after PAO, I spent
the majority of the night lying there waiting until I could get out of bed and
go back downstairs to my sweet, sweet, recliner. While I was recovering from
the PAO, the recliner, for the most part, was the only place I could find any
consistent comfort. What didn’t help things, I’m sure, is that hubby was
petrified of rolling on me in his sleep (he’s impossible to share a bed with
sometimes…and I’m sure he says the same about me). He very cleverly built a
pillow fort for me to sleep in every night. The pillow fort was great for
worries and there were fleeting moments of comfy-ness, but it was mostly just
awkward for us to actually sleep in. Plus it made me HOT…all my body heat was
trapped against me.
 |
| Me in my pillow fort. |
Anyway, I know what you’re all saying…why don’t you just take a
pain pill before bed? Right…and I tried to do that a few times…and sometimes it
helped for a little while and other times it just made me nauseous or loopy. So
I stopped taking them before bed altogether a couple weeks post-PAO. I know
most people live with the “give it some time to get into your system, let your
body get used to it” mantra, blah blah blah but I was really tired and cranky
and wanted instant gratification without a side of dry-heaving.
Well, things got better by mid-late February. I started to be
able to sleep on my right side as well, and that eased a lot of the pain in my
back. I couldn’t stay on that side for long, but even small periods of time
were heavenly. Not to mention I wasn’t sitting in the same position in the
recliner all day, so that helped too. Now, since my second surgery, I’m right
back where I started. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to handle it,
as the all too familiar back pain is rearing its ugly head again. My leg is
stiff and uncomfortable most of the night, although that seems to be getting
better the past few nights.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, sleep is just not the same for
me. Some nights are worse than others, and I’m sure it’s only going to go up
from here. I long for the day I can sleep on my right side again. I tried it on
Saturday (naughty me!), and it was only pleasant for about 2 minutes. At which
time I immediately regretted the decision. My poor little hip is just not ready
for that yet. I feel like my hip is just infinitely angry with me since the
second surgery. We had been patching our relationship back together, slowly but
surely after the PAO. I feel like after putting it through another surgery it
may have just decided that I’m not a good friend…it may very well be revolting.
It’s aching a lot, and my nerves are exceptionally angry; far angrier than they
were before. They are painful to the touch, like a bad rug burn on deep inside
of my thigh. I still get that awesome random stabbing pain deep in my thigh,
followed by deep itching that I can’t relieve. The nerve damage is the most
aggravating part for me. I can deal with the hip aching (what’s a while longer
of that? I’ve had that for like 10-12 years!). I’ve also noticed that sometimes
when I have to move my PAOed leg a certain way, I get some clicking. It’s not a
loud click, or painful…but it’s definitely there. I hate to complain because
all-in-all my recovery has been pretty easy breezy. In the grand scheme of
things, I’m doing really well. It’s just very little annoyances. I’m coping
with the crutches and being active, my triceps are going to be huge by the time
May rolls around.
One last annoying rant: Hubby and I went to a fun convention this
weekend for some us time. Let me tell you, for a large convention with TONS of
people and vendors there were NO PLACES for handicapped people to rest. I was
on my crutches all day long, and I had a really hard time finding places to
rest. It’s one of those things that you would never normally think about until
you need it. There was only one place in the whole building that had chairs for
people to use and rest. End rant.
That's all: Happy Monday!
Talk soon,
D
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