Betide
Life is easing back to some sort of normality, though I can feel that my body and brain are very consufed with each other.
I think I have the pain relief managed - two 10mg doses of OxyContin in the morning, then repeat that at night. (I'm hitting the hours of 8am-9am and 8pm-9pm to take them). I'm still waking at 4:30am with a stiffish, sore back and this is an indication that I might not have the dose right, but during the day, the pain is successfully kept at bay.
And this is allowing me to sleep. OxyContim does that as part of its sideffect too. I'm going to bed between 9pm-11pm and getting up at around 8am. Sleep is constantly broken (I think as I move around and therefore lose comfortable positions) but I do get back to sleep almost straight away which is great. I think there have been several 4-5 hour straight blocks too.
At night before retiring I take 3 melatonin tablets, designed to relax, kick in, whatever. These seem relatively benign.
I'm also taking a medication called Lyrica which is supposed to calm down the nerves and hopefully calm down the itching I was covered in. I'm still itchy, mostly all day every day, but it is not as unpleasant as it was before. Still, I'm causing scabs all over my body from this not unpleasant scratching I'm doing to try and get through it. It also has side-effects that include suicidal thoughts (that is a severe one of course) but also of sleepiness, trouble concentrating, a dry mouth etc, all of which I do have, some of not from the drug.
I am having trouble concentrating. I cannot read. I tried reading for pleasure (not research) earlier this week, but my eyes seemed to bounce off the page for the most part. This is also partially due to sleep loss and sleep deprivation - my mind is a jumble of drawers that haven't been able to closed and organised for almost a month. And my mouth is dry, very dry, to the point where I cannot speak properly in the morning on first waking. This could also be partly due to the ability lie on my mouth-breathing side, but the dryness is incredible. I think I'll revist our GP about using this drug for the moment.
I am also making weird connections with my body and when I sleep and wake. Oh, I've slept 3 hours in this position, so Mr Lower Back you've had a great time, but now it's someone else's turn. Excuse while I reenter the bed at this trajectory, based on these muscles and let's see how the next lot goes. Weird. And disruptive.
What's probably the worst is I've become very grumpy - I'm overtired, I'm concerned about drug and pain management, I can't talk or elucidate myself clearly and am obviously frustrating myslef while doing all this. I don't mind so much about that, but I know I'm getting easily annoyed and frustrated by Isla. It's mainly me still trying to be a discplinarian to her, but I'm struggling to be anymore that and who wants to be the daddy who just keeps growling because they're not eating their dinner properly. I thought I was managing to try and hide this, but Jules confronted me with it last night.
I know that most of this is really just the sleep deprivation meeting much medication, and the disjointed, almost crazy sleep I have been getting. My patience has been worn thin in all things (no sleep will do that) and I just need to rest and recover and try to work back to that next level of normality.
This is all definitely better than before, much better.
We will make appointments in the next week or two with regards to SIRT and whether my liver has dropped enough of its poisons to let me endure the process. I hope so.
I think I have the pain relief managed - two 10mg doses of OxyContin in the morning, then repeat that at night. (I'm hitting the hours of 8am-9am and 8pm-9pm to take them). I'm still waking at 4:30am with a stiffish, sore back and this is an indication that I might not have the dose right, but during the day, the pain is successfully kept at bay.
And this is allowing me to sleep. OxyContim does that as part of its sideffect too. I'm going to bed between 9pm-11pm and getting up at around 8am. Sleep is constantly broken (I think as I move around and therefore lose comfortable positions) but I do get back to sleep almost straight away which is great. I think there have been several 4-5 hour straight blocks too.
At night before retiring I take 3 melatonin tablets, designed to relax, kick in, whatever. These seem relatively benign.
I'm also taking a medication called Lyrica which is supposed to calm down the nerves and hopefully calm down the itching I was covered in. I'm still itchy, mostly all day every day, but it is not as unpleasant as it was before. Still, I'm causing scabs all over my body from this not unpleasant scratching I'm doing to try and get through it. It also has side-effects that include suicidal thoughts (that is a severe one of course) but also of sleepiness, trouble concentrating, a dry mouth etc, all of which I do have, some of not from the drug.
I am having trouble concentrating. I cannot read. I tried reading for pleasure (not research) earlier this week, but my eyes seemed to bounce off the page for the most part. This is also partially due to sleep loss and sleep deprivation - my mind is a jumble of drawers that haven't been able to closed and organised for almost a month. And my mouth is dry, very dry, to the point where I cannot speak properly in the morning on first waking. This could also be partly due to the ability lie on my mouth-breathing side, but the dryness is incredible. I think I'll revist our GP about using this drug for the moment.
I am also making weird connections with my body and when I sleep and wake. Oh, I've slept 3 hours in this position, so Mr Lower Back you've had a great time, but now it's someone else's turn. Excuse while I reenter the bed at this trajectory, based on these muscles and let's see how the next lot goes. Weird. And disruptive.
What's probably the worst is I've become very grumpy - I'm overtired, I'm concerned about drug and pain management, I can't talk or elucidate myself clearly and am obviously frustrating myslef while doing all this. I don't mind so much about that, but I know I'm getting easily annoyed and frustrated by Isla. It's mainly me still trying to be a discplinarian to her, but I'm struggling to be anymore that and who wants to be the daddy who just keeps growling because they're not eating their dinner properly. I thought I was managing to try and hide this, but Jules confronted me with it last night.
I know that most of this is really just the sleep deprivation meeting much medication, and the disjointed, almost crazy sleep I have been getting. My patience has been worn thin in all things (no sleep will do that) and I just need to rest and recover and try to work back to that next level of normality.
This is all definitely better than before, much better.
We will make appointments in the next week or two with regards to SIRT and whether my liver has dropped enough of its poisons to let me endure the process. I hope so.