Night Howls
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@kmakm Thank you, Kate. We're both having a rough time.
The good news today is that my melanoma doctor said the spot my podiatrist found on my toe is not a worry.
My psych said I expect too much of myself (ha!!!) at a week from my first anniversary since diagnosis. She said "mind the gap" between where I am now and where I would like to be (i.e. where I was before). Set a short-term target. She thinks quality of sleep should be my priority for my first target. She's set me a few challenges. I've tried all the sleep hygiene things before, but I'll give hers a go. 1. Don't read in bed. 2. If I'm not asleep after 10 mins, get up again and do something. 3. Set my laptop screen to yellow. Haven't worked out how to do that yet. Sounds ghastly. I hate yellow. 4. Set my alarm to get up at 5 am every day; she swears it will "reset" my circadian rhythm in a week. Eeeewwwk!I suspect that, even though she's supposed to be experienced with cancer patients, she might not understand the long-term impact of chemo/ radiation/ Letrozole on sleep. I might end up doing a lot of night ironing!
She also advised "worry postponement": set an alarm for a time every day - at least two hours before bedtime - to "project manage" worries. Spend 20 mins dealing with worries, then postpone any remainder until the following day. If in bed at night the worries come, say I'll deal with them in worry management time the following day.
This all sounds very wanky, but nothing else has ever worked, so ... I'll give it all a go.
Do you have a date yet for your next lot of surgery?
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@JJ70 if only it was a couple of wtfs per hour I think I’m wracking them at a few per minute today
@Flaneuse yay on the foot thingy. Have fun experimenting with the sleep hygiene things. The yellow/orange on screens is supposed to be better for your eyes and brain. It will probably be under screens or display. I can find it easily on an iPad - it is night mode or something similar (insert thingymabob brain has gone in the face of emotional teenagers who are driv8ng me mental along with a sick geriatric mother who has been to theatre twice in three days)
on a a funny note I have to say yay for my radiation therapist today who told me to get my cancer card out and give it a spray and wipe and polish it up(this made me giggle)and tell everyone else to get over themselves - I was whinging about the 17 phone calls family had made to me in an hour today, the hour I should already have left work in but there was something that required my attention to solve, the fact that I hadn’t had any lunch at nearly 3 o’clock etc etc etc. also love that in the face of this she went and fetched a fruit platter they had and snuck it into my nurse review for me to eat while 5he nurse and I discussed my skin and all the dramas all so my day would improve. When you come across medical staff like this it makes a massive difference to how you feel and how your treatments go. Only 2 more total shots and 5 boosts to go6 -
This seems like the right thread to mark the one year anniversary of my last good night's sleep. It was on the 23/11/17 that I got the callback letter from Breastscreen. You are fondly remembered decent sleep, fondly remembered...0
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I'm having one of those restless nights
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I know what you mean @kmakm. I never dreamt back in February (or January...or whenever), that I would still be looking at this discussion. I thought that with the end of surgery, end of chemo, end of rads, I would be back to sleeping better. @SoldierCrab I hope you got some sleep eventually.
Great news about the toe @Flaneuse Good luck with the wankiness - I honestly can't see how conjuring up your worries and trying to deal with them in the allotted 20 minutes or then postponing can work. But I hope it does.
@sarnicad Sounds like your rad nurse needs some chockies from a card carrying cancer survivor!0 -
@Flaneuse good news about the foot. The suggestion to get out of bed and do something else is a good one for me, I rarely go online in the wee hours now but that doesn't mean I'm not awake, I'm just trying to not blue light myself.
I usually restrict myself to doing the general housework--when I get up in the morning it's like the cleaning fairy has been.
I got a bit carried away the other night and pulled everything out of the linen cupboard. That was dumb. I'm not a good folder--more of a jammer--so that tangle of sheets and pillow cases and doona covers and blankets and quilts and table clothes etc is an ongoing irritation. Piling it all on the dining room table has not helped. 28 towels. Who the fuck needs 28 towels if they are not running a small hotel? My Manchester obsession is out of control. I've got to do a cull, but am unable to make decisions about what stays and what goes. The caravan is full of more of the same, there must be half a dozen ''spare" doonas out there. Sigh.
Oh well, we've had over an inch of rain and it's only going to get to 15 degrees today, I'm going for a walk in the Warbys, the mess will still be here when I get back.4 -
I'm not sure how you can have a Manchester obsession but each to their own. Personally, I've got a thing for wooden kitchen chairs (there's a few in the shed that I can't bear to part with) - a bit harder to jam them into a cupboard.
I did have all of my Mum's (and probably her grandmother's) linen until a couple of years ago. I ruthlessly culled it, only keeping the best, including a couple of white sheets that could be used as tablecloths and some hand-drawn items. The rest I gave away and I've never regretted it. You can get so tied down by "stuff". Same reason that I sold all of my vinyl a couple of months ago.0 -
We had a factory here that manufactured fabric for Sheridan and Dri Glo as well as curtaining and upholstery fabrics. They had a factory outlet... I love good sheets and towels and my mercurial thermostat has seen me on a decades long search for teh perfect bedding combination.There are also boxes and boxes of quilting and dressmaking fabric in the store room.
I'm also a shoe hoarder--I think at last count I had 15 pairs of boots. It's a worry. We won't talk about the industrial quantities of crockery and general restaurant equipment--though I was a chef and did a lot of outside catering jobs. Tools, I have a fully equipped workshop and can, literally, build a house and then the furniture to fill it. I sort of like my 'stuff'. Most of the time. It will be a hell of a garage sale when I kick the bucket
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@Sarnicad I found the setting on my Macbook Air for the yellow nightlight thingy. Sounds like you have a wonderful rads team, bless them.
@kmakm Grrr. You poor dear - a whole year without decent sleep!
Your diagnosis anniversary is a week ahead of mine.
I think my psych yesterday forgot momentarily that I'm a cancer patient. The sleep hygiene stuff she talked about is general advice, without regard to medications or pain from Letrozole or my dodgy knee etc.
Well, would you believe it - the worry postponement thing worked last night. When the psych suggested it, and putting aside the 20 mins etc., I immediately said, "Worry project management", because that fitted my way of thinking. When I was an IT Project Manager, in my second-last of four+ careers, and someone raised something that didn't require immediate attention, I'd say "I'll put it on the agenda for the integration meeting" - which we had three times a week, to go round the team and update to ensure that everyone knew where everyone else was at. Well, last night I had my little meeting with myself while I cut the vegies for dinner. I had two items on the agenda (one will be permanent, I think: my 47 y/o son's behaviour) and my embarrassment about having been too dominant at a gathering on Monday (the adrenalin of one of my first "outings" since my 10-month long "voluntary house arrest" during treatment). I talked aloud to myself, sorted what could and couldn't be done about both and then closed the meeting. I had just gone to bed last night when my messy, inconsiderate, invasive neighbours (who leave their wheelie bins in the front yard near the border with my property, a few metres from my bedroom) put something in the bins and banged the lids down hard. I said "I'll put that on the agenda for tomorrow's meeting". While I was trying to fall asleep, if something came into my mind, same thing. It's amazing, it's wanky, but the one night, it worked. If it continues to work, and if it's the only thing I get out of this psych, that will be good. Because I am a worrier - long before I got cancer.
@Sister@Zoffiel I understand the manchester obsession. But mine is more tableware. My kids are going to inherit a mountain of glasses, serving platters, etc. This year I gave my niece all the fancy tea-sets. Thinking of clearing the house, I'm looking for things to sell on Gumtree. I had my first successful sale yesterday, of a child car booster seat I bought when my first grandson was the size for it. Earned enough to buy half a G&T the next time I go to Paris, hopefully in 2020.
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@Zoffiel I think I would enjoy rummaging in your storeroom cupboards. Your shoe story reminds me that when I went to the UK to work in 2003 I took two pairs of shoes. When I moved back to Australia eight years later I shipped 42 pairs.
Your Tool Girl skills, I think you would get on well with one of my nieces - Millie Ross, who is on Gardening Australia. If you ever watch it - she builds stuff out of anything.1 -
Yay for wankiness then @Flaneuse. I also follow the get up and do something advice - but I give myself an hour not 10 minutes. This is usually in the middle of the night, after abluting, when my brain decides to turn on for the day. I am usually stuck with a reel of song lyrics that won't dissipate.
Whilst we are talking obsessions and fetishes - mine is teapots (@kmakm I still occasionally think of that rooster teapot) and stationery When I go into Officeworks, I get goosebumps, so you can imagine what happens stepping into Typo or Kikki K.
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Obsessions...anything that sparkles. I am fairly sure I was a bower bird in a previous life.
have renovated my bedroom and it is starting to resemble some burlesque dancers dressing room LOL. I kind of like it though.
From my experience sleep is pretty elusive until about 10-14 months after chemo. Then it seemed to gradually get better to the point where for the last couple of months I have been getting a good 5-6 hours straight. Your mind starts to settle a bit the further you get down the track thankfully. That's not to say some random 80's song wont still get stuck in your head for reasons known only to itself @J770
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