4 months +....coming up for air
Where were we....
Mid december? Progressing back to full time work? That happened. My first scheduled tradeback (aside from the two I had to cancel in November since I was nowhere near full shifts then) was December 17th. I was cleared for full return to duties effective December 17th. It was close, and more than a little stressful for me. And that commenced a brutal few weeks until January 1st where I found myself working through 2/3rd of my weekend time off. 6 days a week, 10 hour shifts...a bit like being back in theatre but with the ability to take sick days. I took a couple sick days. Wouldn't have made it through otherwise. I put my head down and just kept focusing on making it thought each day, making it through the year, and not falling flat on my face from exhaustion. I went to work, I ate food, I slept, and that was pretty much it.
So let us speak no more of December, 2014. Feh. Moving on.
2015 has happened. I made it. Had a real full weekend last week (yay!) with only one day of PT (yay!) plus acupuncture, chiro, and massage. Also got in a very satisfying swim. Swam a full mile at pre-surgery time with flip turns. After lap 36 the stretching out of my legs in flutterkick and really *using* my back and shoulder muscles felt so darned good that I kept going for another 10 laps. Then grabbed some water flotation ankle cuffs and got in some great leg exercises. Damn it felt good to have a full, pre-surgery level workout. Not there on land yet, but in the water I'm back to moving like a greased eel. Well, maybe more like a greased seal, since I'm still up about 15 lbs and spilling out of my swimsuit :/
Had to schedule my next post-surgery follow up next Thursday due to mandatory inservice training for work. Boooooooo. (Also means that i'll lose one day of my weekend in order to be at work for 8 hrs of overtime. While I welcome stocking up on comp time, I'd much rather have the day off right now.) So this coming weekend is only partially relaxing and restorative for me. Then next one is full weekend (yay!) and after that I have four trade paybacks in a row, but each week is only one shift on a Wed or Thurs so I always have Tuesday, the first day of my weekend, off. Plus either Wed or Thurs but not both. I can do that and prosper. But I have learned no more 2-shift weekends again! I still NEED time off to recuperate.
Speaking of recuperating, part of my approach during this extended recovery is trying to improve my overall quality of life with more coping strategies, particularly in addressing long-term stress issues. I love my job, it's useful and helpful and helps me feel like i'm contributing to society in a positive way. But of course it's stressful and my single effective coping mechanism to stress has always been exercise. Lately i just am not able to jump on a treadmill after work for 30 minutes and sweat it out. And honestly, that's never going to be an option after every stressful event in my life. So, yeah, I should have some other strategies in my "toolbox." So I went to a shrink who specializes in relaxation and sleep disorders. Invested in some guided relaxation tracks which I'm supposed to be listening to every day which feels like a time suck but it easy and pleasant because all I have to do is chill on my back and listen to someone else talk and try to focus on the track and not on all the many, many other thoughts racing through my head. Four days in and so far I have consistently failed entirely at focused listening for the full 20 minute track even once. My brain is just too full. This is part of the problem.
The less pleasant part of sleep doc's protocol is a week of deliberate sleep deprivation. He says that since I am a "long sleeper" (average 9-11 hours in bed per night in normal health) with frequent disturbances (tossing and turning every 15-20 minutes) that prevent that long stretch from being restorative...he wants me to limit myself to 9 hrs in bed for a full week. He thinks that will break my unconscious connection between sleep and pain-related restlessness and help re-train my brain and body to be so even-more-exhausted that the disturbances will stop. Made a lot more sense when he explained it. I make it sound like a masochistic exercise in sleep deprivation. Which is totally how it feels. Five days later and so far I am disturbed even more in my sleep, waking up after a few hours so nauseated that the pain in my stomach is unbearable. Now, it is (unhelpfully) normal for me to experience nausea when I get too tired. But I've never had nausea so bad it woke me up with stomach pain. Muscle spams in my psoas and hip flexor seems to intensify that nausea. Last night it was so bad that I got out of bed and went wandering around the house in the 4am dark trying to figure out something, anything, I could do to relax and hurt less without turning on lights (lest I be unable to get back to sleep.) Tonight i'm giving up and taking a muscle relaxer and might just stay in bed longer than allowed. Today I feel like my skin can't contain my body and it's not a pleasant feeling.
Mid december? Progressing back to full time work? That happened. My first scheduled tradeback (aside from the two I had to cancel in November since I was nowhere near full shifts then) was December 17th. I was cleared for full return to duties effective December 17th. It was close, and more than a little stressful for me. And that commenced a brutal few weeks until January 1st where I found myself working through 2/3rd of my weekend time off. 6 days a week, 10 hour shifts...a bit like being back in theatre but with the ability to take sick days. I took a couple sick days. Wouldn't have made it through otherwise. I put my head down and just kept focusing on making it thought each day, making it through the year, and not falling flat on my face from exhaustion. I went to work, I ate food, I slept, and that was pretty much it.
So let us speak no more of December, 2014. Feh. Moving on.
2015 has happened. I made it. Had a real full weekend last week (yay!) with only one day of PT (yay!) plus acupuncture, chiro, and massage. Also got in a very satisfying swim. Swam a full mile at pre-surgery time with flip turns. After lap 36 the stretching out of my legs in flutterkick and really *using* my back and shoulder muscles felt so darned good that I kept going for another 10 laps. Then grabbed some water flotation ankle cuffs and got in some great leg exercises. Damn it felt good to have a full, pre-surgery level workout. Not there on land yet, but in the water I'm back to moving like a greased eel. Well, maybe more like a greased seal, since I'm still up about 15 lbs and spilling out of my swimsuit :/
Had to schedule my next post-surgery follow up next Thursday due to mandatory inservice training for work. Boooooooo. (Also means that i'll lose one day of my weekend in order to be at work for 8 hrs of overtime. While I welcome stocking up on comp time, I'd much rather have the day off right now.) So this coming weekend is only partially relaxing and restorative for me. Then next one is full weekend (yay!) and after that I have four trade paybacks in a row, but each week is only one shift on a Wed or Thurs so I always have Tuesday, the first day of my weekend, off. Plus either Wed or Thurs but not both. I can do that and prosper. But I have learned no more 2-shift weekends again! I still NEED time off to recuperate.
Speaking of recuperating, part of my approach during this extended recovery is trying to improve my overall quality of life with more coping strategies, particularly in addressing long-term stress issues. I love my job, it's useful and helpful and helps me feel like i'm contributing to society in a positive way. But of course it's stressful and my single effective coping mechanism to stress has always been exercise. Lately i just am not able to jump on a treadmill after work for 30 minutes and sweat it out. And honestly, that's never going to be an option after every stressful event in my life. So, yeah, I should have some other strategies in my "toolbox." So I went to a shrink who specializes in relaxation and sleep disorders. Invested in some guided relaxation tracks which I'm supposed to be listening to every day which feels like a time suck but it easy and pleasant because all I have to do is chill on my back and listen to someone else talk and try to focus on the track and not on all the many, many other thoughts racing through my head. Four days in and so far I have consistently failed entirely at focused listening for the full 20 minute track even once. My brain is just too full. This is part of the problem.
The less pleasant part of sleep doc's protocol is a week of deliberate sleep deprivation. He says that since I am a "long sleeper" (average 9-11 hours in bed per night in normal health) with frequent disturbances (tossing and turning every 15-20 minutes) that prevent that long stretch from being restorative...he wants me to limit myself to 9 hrs in bed for a full week. He thinks that will break my unconscious connection between sleep and pain-related restlessness and help re-train my brain and body to be so even-more-exhausted that the disturbances will stop. Made a lot more sense when he explained it. I make it sound like a masochistic exercise in sleep deprivation. Which is totally how it feels. Five days later and so far I am disturbed even more in my sleep, waking up after a few hours so nauseated that the pain in my stomach is unbearable. Now, it is (unhelpfully) normal for me to experience nausea when I get too tired. But I've never had nausea so bad it woke me up with stomach pain. Muscle spams in my psoas and hip flexor seems to intensify that nausea. Last night it was so bad that I got out of bed and went wandering around the house in the 4am dark trying to figure out something, anything, I could do to relax and hurt less without turning on lights (lest I be unable to get back to sleep.) Tonight i'm giving up and taking a muscle relaxer and might just stay in bed longer than allowed. Today I feel like my skin can't contain my body and it's not a pleasant feeling.