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I'm Carole, living in London, happily married and mum to two amazing boys.I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Rectal Cancer in April 2010. Surgery took place in November 2010 and I now have a permanent colostomy...Spinal mets were then diagnosed in October 2011...In January 2012 I was told of further spread to the hip area (multiple lesions)..My life expectancy is now 6-9 months. Walk alongside me on the last part of my experience with this..

Wednesday 7 July 2010

Oh yes! and as for sleep.......

I had to add a post about this subject because on Monday I commented that at least the morphine would probably help me to get a decent nights sleep....

In true panto style 'Oh NO it doesn't'....Monday night I was awake every two hours or less, not through dreadful or unbearable pain just 'awake'. 2am awake to go to the loo, around 4am awake because I had another really mad dream, 5.30am awake because I needed to know what time it was! 7am time to get up - feeling dead to the world and wanting to sleep more........Grrrrrr!

Last night took the morphine later thinking it would kick in and help me to sleep longer...'Oh NO it didn't'.......
Had a relaxing bath around 11pm, smothered myself in morphine and Nu-gel mix, had a cup of hot chocolate then took the morphine around midnight. Went off to bed and laid there for what felt like ages - finally fell asleep. Woke suddenly and went to the loo - time 1.18am !!!! back to bed and back to sleep - woke at 2.23am...back to bed laid awake for ages, woke suddenly after dodgy dream 3.45...back to sleep on the sofa for an hour then back to bed at 4.45am. Woke at 5.15am when Rab got up for work - woke again at 6am when he was leaving for work - woke at 6.55am time to get up and again dead tired.

If morphine isn't going to make me sleep I guess I'm just going to have to get used to dozing on and off and put up with it until my system settles back into some routine.

7 comments:

  1. Oh crap, sorry forgot to tell you about the dreams and hallucinations....I had one of those button pushy things (PCA its called and stands for 'Patient Controlled Analgesia') in hospital and used to doze off, I woke once and although the nurses were all there as normal the walls were shooting backwards and forwards and I had a vague recollection that it looked a bit like a star-trek set.

    One night I watched all the lights on the far-side of the wall...you know the bendy ones like table lamps...I watched them moving about and growling...

    Interesting times, can't be doing with the drug taking...no way will I ever be a junky (not by choice anyway).

    One piece of advice that I didn't take is after the op have the epidural as that kills the pain for the first few days when it is at it's worst!

    Stay cool my friend...looking forward to visiting you in hospital if I am allowed of course!

    T x

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  2. Sounds like my schedule! Bed at 12am, awake till 2am, sleep until 2.30am as Manolis wakes me when he comes home for his mid shift feed, awake till 4am, in the loo again at 5ish and again 6am, finally drift off and Manoli comes in from work 6.30 so eventually get to sleep at 9am for a couple of hours. And thats if the man downstairs isn't drilling or banging.
    Yes, its not all about you, ya know! LOL! only joking sis! We always did sync with one another so guess that's why I don't sleep either. Like I said, if you ever want to text me, I'm awake anyway! Lots of love and hugs xxxxx

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  3. Oh and don't use Aloe Vera aftersun on your burnt bits as it bloody hurts! T xx

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  4. Tony, just read about your Aloe Vera aftersun experience on the C board! I can so relate to the 'biting on the towel' comment :-(

    It's surprising what really does hurt once you're sore in that area. You'd 'think' that anything with Aloe Vera would be naturally soothing but obviously not the case.

    One tip that was helpful from one of the Radiotherapy staff - if you're feeling really sore in that area and it hurts to clean or wipe, put a large dollop of Aqueous cream onto the loo paper first then wipe - much much easier and less painful experience.

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  5. I have put some sudocream on, bit like having nappy rash... :-) What a plonker I am.... T x

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  6. Sorry, forgot to ask...how are you getting on? Sleeping, eating, sore? :-( T x

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  7. Actually feeling a bit of improvement today. Still sore but not unbearably so, much better than a week ago when I continually broke down in tears due to the persistent horrendous pain.

    Sleeping is crap, was texting my sister at 2.30am last night (4.30am Rhodes time) but am managing to grab an hour here and there during the day....now 1.45am and I'm still awake.

    Eating is hit and miss, still making sure that what I DO have is healthy but having to force myself to eat really - I just don't seem to fancy much at all (but I think it's a 'mental' thing - eat less, go loo less = hurts less)

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