Sleep Interrupted

Well, I was awake again last night…which gave me more time to think about how I came to be such a terrible sleeper, and I realized that I had two other contributors to my sleepless nights – my stays in the hospital and my bladder pain.

My bladder will definitely be blogged about in the future, because a serious side effect of internal and external radiation is losing the lining of your bladder. I am sure everyone will be waiting in anticipation, but it is a side effect I was totally unaware of that is important for people going through pelvic radiation to know about.

So back to how it affects my sleep…The bladder pain I experience has no warning signs, no way of knowing how long it will last and feels like lemon juice in a cut, along with intermittent painful spasms that I can not compare to anything I have felt before. On top of that it can last for days or  sometimes weeks.

Since I am not very fond of taking narcotics, which is the only legal remedy that has consistently worked for the pain. I have gone back and forth taking the narcotics at different times over the years, but I found they made me lethargic and not at my best mentally. For a long period of time I would not anything for it and would just grin and bear it. During the day I would focus on my work and stay active to keep my mind off it, but sometimes when I could not take it anymore I would go in the bathroom and cry, which made me feel a little bit better, but was not really effective for pain management. At night, I would often lay awake, stay still until I could not stand it anymore and then get up and start working to keep my mind off my aching bladder. Then, if it the pain did not subside after 4 or 5 days I would start taking half a Vicodin, or whatever I was being prescribed at the time, to take the edge off the pain.

The other contributor to my bad habit is my visits to the hospital. Every time I have stayed in the hospital I start to get my days and nights switched around. If you have ever had a stay in the hospital you will know what I mean, they are constantly checking in on you at night, and then about 9am or so, they leave you alone except for periodic checks to change your IV or check your vitals. So, I started getting my sleep in the middle of the day in short bursts. In addition, there are so many sounds (people coughing, machines beeping, etc.) that turning on the TV drowns them out.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I am hoping that I will have a peaceful nights sleep tonight. I am envisioning the day where I will again drift off without effort and then wake up right before my alarm at five to enjoy the peacefulness of the early morning.