Need to Sleep!

I don't sleep at normal times. Last night I was up until 3:00am, then slept until past noon. Actually, I sleep about 4 hrs at a time...I wake up around 6 or 7 when the dog wants to go outside and the chickens want to be let out of their roosting pen, and I need to use the restroom. I can't make myself get up then though. Aside from the fact that I just went to sleep at 3:00am, I have no motivation for getting up. I'm still tired, and getting up is work...getting dressed, getting showered (though not in that order)...WORK!

I went to bed at 1:00am tonight...(yes, 45 minutes later, here I am)...and lay there crying, not tired, feeling depressed, feeling upset that I can't sleep, thinking too much, feeling guilty about not being able just to be back at work, worrying about the thick packet of paperwork I need to finish this weekend...I don't like crying. Not in bed alone. I hate it. I got up to whine about it here, and remembered I had not taken a Xanax at bedtime. So, I took one, and I am hoping it helps. It hasn't been making me sleepy lately, but it still helps a bit with crying and anxiety.

I went to the doctor today, only to find out when I signed in that my appointment is actually on Monday. I had checked my printout from last time for the time, and didn't even look at the date. Or it could be that dates and days mean very little to me and I have a hard time keeping track. So I gave the receptionist some info for billing AHCSSS and said, "I guess I"ll see you Monday then!" I think I have a counseling appt Monday also, around midday. Since I am so screwed up, luckily the two didn't end up over-lapping.

Reading about benzos today, I read that Xanax isn't for long term, and Valium shouldn't be used by people with sleep apnea. I am undiagnosed, but the sleep study showed several "incidences", just not enough for the insurance company to care; thus the dying while on Ambien in the hospital. That really pissed me off, because when I had Valium for the PET scan, it was so wonderful, even at a low dose, just for the procedure; I know a higher dose would help me sleep. I have got to do something about this sleeplessness. Apparently, insomnia is a reported side effect of the damn Femara. That's just what I need. I will make an appt with the family doctor on Monday, and talk to her again about different drugs.

Oh, and yes, I need to get Brad in next week, and get his prescriptions filled before the 31st, when he falls off my insurance. I have heard nothing from his father about the subject, other than that he called someone in HR and hadn't received a returned call yet. That was at the beginning of this week! I wonder what the retail on Brad's meds is?

I even had a list ready for the doctor, and printed out, one for me, one for him, for today! I think when I lay down to try to sleep, the disappointment hit me of being wrong about today being my appointment.

I really don't know how I am going to make it, fiscally, long term. The emotional and mental are difficult; fiscal seems insurmountable.

It's 2:00am now. I suppose I can try bed again.

Radio-radio-radio--radioactive!

PET Scan went just fine, thanks to the Valium. And boy, that stuff kicks in FAST! I didn't even cry when the tech couldn't find my vein for the radioactive glucose (sounds so yummy). Two pokes wasn't too bad, but I'm changing my wording on how I describe the two choices.

They have a special bathroom for the radioactive people, with a big ol' radioactive materials sign on the door. Only the injected get to use it!

The time flew right by, and I didn't get a backache in the machine. I should have discovered Valium many scans ago!

When it was over, I asked her if I lit up like a Christmas tree...(my oncologist's phrase; he said I didn't "light up like a Christmas tree" on my bone scan). She very cleverly said she didn't know, she hadn't looked yet. Uh-huh. But she said I did very well to give them what they needed. They never tell you anything. I understand how they can't and all. She said a picture would go to my Dr. with the report. I said, good; I need to see a picture.

She was awfully damn nice to me, so either a) it was really bad, or b) she hadn't seen the bone scan and didn't know how to judge progression. Whatever. I'll give the Dr. a couple days, then call. I mean, hello; he didn't want me to go a whole weekend without talking to him about the bone scan! So if it's really bad news, he'll call me in. Monday (appt) feels a long way off.

I'm so tired today! I slept all afternoon, then had a late afternoon nap, and now, as soon as I'm finished with this, I'm going to bed for the night. My fever came back again, after the scan, and then broke while I was sleeping and I (Mary, is the past tense of sweat "sweat" or "sweated"?) perspired up a storm! I still don't feel very well though.

a new paranoia to add to the list...

I still don't feel very well, and physically just tired. I have this increasing pain, I may have mentioned it, in my side at about my waist or so. It's now moving around my stomach and the other side is starting to hurt. Hurts the most when I lie down or get up, so when I went to bed, I started crying because it hurt and made me think of my paranoia: that it's cancer all along those bones, spreading around my ribs and my pelvic bone. And there's the kicker paranoid part; I have an umbilical hernia, which has been re-herniated for several years, which has been more painful in the past several months. A hernia is a tear in the lining that holds your guts in. OK, I know the cancer spreads via blood, which would explain why it's on MY HEAD, but what if...WHAT IF...it's growing around my rib cage and will just help itself right inside the tear in my hernia lining. thing. YEAH. That would be bad, right? I mean, lots of stuff in there...

Every new pain that doesn't go away quickly, I am just SURE is cancer spreading.

So, I had to get up and write it down. To hopefully get it out of my head. MONDAY is the PET Scan. It feels like...D-Day? Is that a proper analogy? Doctor called me in ONE Valium for the procedure. It's my first time with Valium. I hope it doesn't let me down in the calmness, anti anxiety department, because, seriously, the only thing that would make me happier is if they offered me a doobie...(which spell check thinks should be "doorbell, which would NOT make me one iota as happy).

Tonight I just feel like things are speeding up...that I don't has as much time as I assumed I did to get things in order for my son. And crying in bed NEVER puts me to sleep.