Waiting seems to play havoc with sleep.

[Mentu]

After last week's meeting with my surgeon, I felt much less stressed and thought I might sleep better. I'm actually sleeping well but not for very long; I'm continuing to wake around 4:30 in the morning. Sometimes I can go back to sleep after an hour or so and at other times I cannot. Waiting just seems to be playing havoc with my sleeping cycles.

I wonder if part of the problem is spending so much time lying down. I find I can be active for 6-7 hours with a couple of rest periods then my heart really begins to pound and the only thing I know to do is go to bed and let it calm down. Exercise would help, normally, but now it just makes things worse. Then last Friday I noticed my legs felt heavy and when I checked found that they were swelling. My Doctor of course said to lie down and elevate them.

Those of you who have done this for longer than the couple of months I will end up waiting between the appearance of really troublesome symptoms in July and surgery in September must be made of sterner stuff. What are your strategies?

 

[Marguerite53]

I had to wait 3 years and seriously, sleeping was the worst. I would start thinking, what if I die before I wake up.... is everything done? Kids gonna be okay? Life in order? So honestly, besides this place -- a place I could cruise into at any time, day or night, and find someone to listen to or someone to listen to me -- I would knit. I would use my hands in this methodical, monotonous way and it calmed me down. My daughter has a ton of friends, I just knit scarves out of pretty yarns and gave them away. More than 50 all told, I'm sure.

Perhaps knitting would not be your thing, but is there some other thing, like playing solitaire, or wood-working, journal writing? Just something generally mindless and monotonous and rhythmic. To pass the time during the day and kind of mellow you out for the night-time.

You're pretty close now, so try not to worry about it. But I totally empathize!

Marguerite

 

[CThrock]

I waited 5 months before my actually OHS. It was hard to sleep alot of the time. I would wake up from dreams and thoughts of many things that had to do with the surgery. I tried walking around moving to different areas for sleep, playing music saying alot of prayers to comfort myself. Now it just sort of a blur and you move on to the next step of recovery once OHS is done. Oh, I came on to the forum alot even in the middle of the night someone was always on and read alot too. Good Luck and remember we are here for you all hours.

 

[netmiff]

maybe ask your doc for some sleeping pills, quite a few of us have had to resort to them the last few weeks before surgery. You're not doing yourself any favours by toughing it out, the better shap you are in, physically and mentally, the easier it will be on the other side!

 

[cuoricino]

I've always been a journal writer and in this waiting period when I can't sleep I write down everything that's running through my mind. Surprisingly sometimes I'll just write about surgery stuff only to go back to bed and have random thoughts run through my head, like shopping lists for the next day or to do lists for the week. Sometimes I have to write those down as well before I can go back to sleep. I think that my brain is usually so surgery-centered that when I finally get those thoughts on paper and out of my head, they make room for all the other thoughts I put off during the day!!

If it gets really bad, asking your doctor for sleeping pills isn't a horrible idea either.