First of all - there are only two possible explanations for what is happening to me at this minute - either Dad-dio has cranked up the heat downstairs and is trying to sweat out the canser OR I am having a hot flash. Both are equally likely alternatives at this point.
I would also like to say that sleeping pills are highly over-rated. Either they just aren't working for ME, I'm not taking enough of them, or my brain activity (slow as it may be) is blocking their effects. To those of you who may tune into this little ramble - I apologize wholeheartedly and in advance. Tonight there will be no jokes or giggles - but I can't sleep and I need an outlet. The hardest thing about being sick, of having to face my mortality head on, is the not knowing. Not knowing FOR SURE how this is all going to turn out. My therapist says my biggest job is to ALWAYS actively reign in my negative thoughts - b/c they will drive me crazy and negatively impact my body chemistry which needs to be in tip-top form right now. No kidding, but that's a pretty tall order some days. Especially when one doesn't really know for certain what triggered the little cells in one's body to mutate and one's immune system to slow down enough to let them do it. Was it stress-related? Was it an unavoidable genetic sure-thing? Was it karma showing me up for some past failing or character flaw? Or was it just the luck of the damn short straw? (Hey, that rhymed.)
How do you prevent your brain from going to that dark place, where you secretly hate everyone who is healthier than you? Where you resent people who complain about life's little annoyances? (A month-long boil water advisory certainly IS an inconvenience - but there are millions of people around the world right now without clean drinking water - and none in their foreseeable future so let's get a little perspective people.) Where you wonder at the shallow nature of some people when they and their families are at this moment in time perfectly healthy and yet they cannot just be grateful b/c they are so wrapped up in some superficial, unimportant concern that in the end JUST DOES NOT MATTER.
Ok, so the zopiclone is finally starting to kick in. Thank the Sweet Baby Jesus - b/c if I had continued on in that vein you would all be thinking that I have turned into a bitter, little self-involved shrew. Not really - just sleep-deprived and cranky. I will be better tomorrow. Promise.
Hey, Barbie! That's a pretty normal stream of consciousness given your ordeal, I would think. At least it's very familiar to me. I think it's good that you vent a little of that every now and then because that will help you follow your therapist's very good advice ... or at least I think it's good advice ... the reigning in of negative thoughts. I like that your therapist doesn't deny their reality but instead asks you to do your best to compartmentalize them.
ReplyDeleteBlessed sleep. I found that melatonin helped me a little bit and the good people at Inspire Health (as well as my naturopath) recommended it. Apparently, for breast cancer anyway, it has other benefits in addition to helping with sleep.
My best tip for night time hot flashes may not work for you. We don't have a headboard and the head of our bed is against an outside wall. We keep our bedroom very cool, too. During the night when I have a hot flash or just trouble regulating my temperature, I do a LOT of pillow flipping. The cool outer wall chills the backside of my pillow and when I flip it, it's heavenly to feel that heavenly chill against the back of my neck and my face. It gets me through the worst of it most of the time.