Sleepy head

OK so Spring turned into Autumn.... Here's the next installment of the Joint Journals.

Tuesday 26^th July 2011

Oh, to have a good nights sleep !!!!!!!

First, it was my right knee giving me painful sleepless nights then it was my ‘pressure sore’. Now it’s my hip (or rather lack of it) and my back.

Whenever I need to turn over in bed I have to actually wake up as my leg is so floppy without a hip it can’t move on it’s own. Sometimes it’s hanging out of the bed, others times it’s in weird and wonderful position either in the bed or on my body….

Lying in bed sometimes brings the worst out of my pains so the slightest movement sets it off.

Now there’s a new ‘kid on the block’ to keep me awake , my wrist, as one of the symptoms of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is severe pins and needles. If that wasn’t enough depression can cause sleepless nights.  

To try to help me get off to sleep – or rather to relieve the boredom – I listen to audio books on my MP3 player. So far I’ve ‘read’:

• Great Expectations
• The Secret Garden
• The ‘What Katie Did’ series
• The ‘Anne of Green Gables’ series
• Sense and Sensibility (twice)
• Pride and Prejudice (twice)
• The Railway Children
• The Secret Garden
• Little Women

I’m also putting my Kindle to good use. As I don’t want to disturb John by putting on the bedside light to read, I bought myself a headlight so I feel like a child secretly reading under the bed covers.

Amazon offer free download books for the Kindle so I’ve been building up my Kindle library. Most of the books aren’t really my type but I’m not after a good read. I’m after something that sends me to sleep.

Tonight was a bad night for getting no sleep. I tried my audio books and my Kindle but it wasn’t until 5am that I finally got off to sleep.

When John’s alarm went off at 7.30am I could have cried. After we have breakfast and John has gone upstairs to get ready for work, I would normally read the newspaper until he’s ready to leave for work. This morning I pushed the newspaper to one side of the sofa and laid my head on the arm of the sofa.

The next thing I knew John was wakening me to say he was off to work. I had no recollection of going to sleep.

After kissing John off to work I crawled back into bed and didn’t wake up about 11.30am. Again, I had no recollection of nodding.

That night, like many nights, come 9.30pm/10pm I was fighting to keep my eyes open. Thankfully John understands and doesn’t mind me falling asleep when we’re watching TV or a DVD.

It now happens so often that John asks if I’d like my blanket and cushion when we settle down for the evening…..