I was able to sleep a bit on Wednesday night, well, I guess it was really Thursday morning . . . I got a few hours in. I could feel the difference Thursday, big difference. Wednesday was a very busy day. I saw a doctor (alternative medicine person, she is both an MD – with a number of specialties, including internal medicine and also integrative medicine, she was brought in by Hoag to set up their integrative medicine program). Anyway, she is excellent, but, naturally not covered by my health insurance. Still, I felt it was a good idea to see her prior to surgery to see what I could do to prepare best for surgery and for recovery.
She was a tremendous help to me during chemotherapy last year – amazing really. She encouraged me to exercise (as did my oncologist up at UCLA . . . but, my Hoag oncologists all felt that exercise was really not a good idea during chemotherapy . . . instead, they felt I should be resting all of the time . . . hmmpf)!
I followed the “get regular, daily exercise” advice and it served me quite well during chemotherapy. By the last round, I was dragging and was not able to get a lot of exercise. But, unlike many of my chemo patient peers, I never once had to interrupt chemotherapy due to low blood counts or low energy. So many of the fellow patients had such difficulties. I really credit my getting through the chemo as well as I did (and working full time during most of it) to Dr. McCann (the integrative doctor I saw yesterday). She helped me so much. So, I thought it would be good to see her again before surgery.
She gave me a pretty long list of things to start doing now and things to do after surgery to help speed up the recovery time. It was well worth it to see her.
She didn’t have a whole lot to offer me about my not getting sleep . . . since the reason is the pain I am suffering with . . . and, besides, it is temporary. So, there isn’t a lot to do there. But, something probably does need to give soon, as I really, really do need sleep.
It is after 4 am and I have not yet slept. So, that puts the grand total this week (since Monday’s expansion) to about 4 or 5 hours and I think that was all yesterday. That is not good. I need, need, need to sleep.
These expansions seem to cause more pain each time (I guess that makes sense as the muscle and skin are being stretched further and further each time). But, what it means so far is that I am losing more and more sleep each week. So, I need to figure something out since these expansions will continue right up to the week of surgery . . . I really want to be able to go into surgery rested . . . although that sounds kind of unrealistic right now 🙂
Well, okay, it is 4:15 am, maybe I can get some sleep. Turning off the phones in case I am able to sleep into the morning some.
Wish me luck.
Love and peace,
Lisa
cancerfree2b 
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