Well here i am again at 4.30 in the morning and i can't sleep yet again!! My husband Darryl has terminal small cell cancer and, at the moment is going through a really good phase. Which, i would have thought, would set my mind at rest and enable me to sleep. But no, here i am again having had 2 hrs sleep tonight wide awake with mad thoughts running around my head!! This is driving me crazy and i just seem to be on auto pilot all the time. Darryl is 44 years old and we have been given a prognosis of a 2-3 year life span for him. I can't seem to let go of this thought, and maybe part of me can't sleep because of that, as i feel if i'm asleep i'm wasteing precious time!! Darryl is sound asleep and resting well, and if i stay upstairs next to him listening to his breathing, i keep thinking is this the last time i'll ever hear that and end up getting so uptight and worried that i find it better to just get up again. So i wander round the house do a few chores, have a hot caffiene free drink and will myself to sleep all to no avail i might add!! hahaha surely i'm not the only carer who never sleeps, or am i????? any comments gratefully recieved. Take care my friends and hope your all sleeping well. love and hugs mel xxx
good to hear i'm not alone after all!!! hahaha i also drink tea so have to share that tea plantation with me i'm afraid!! although mine is caffeine free! lol I wish i could just switch off and not keep thinking all these thoughts but they never seem to go away. I'm trying to stay positive and keep thinking maybe there will be a cure for darryl before it's too late, and then i keep thinking am i living on false hope??? This is so hard and my brain never switches off. I keep thinking is enough being done for darryl and would he get a better prognosis if we went abroad, would they offer him better treatment than here? Then i feel guilty as we couldn't afford treatment abroad any way so just going round in circles at the mo!!I wanted to grow ols with darryl and that seems to be getting taken away from us and i can't bear the thought of being a widow!! I'm not wishing Darryls life away because i love him so much but i have these crazy thoughts then feel so flipping guilty for feeling that!!! wish this never happened to us, and everyone who knows darryl find him such a lovely man that he doesn't desrve this at all. Just wanted to thank you for your support you take care and i'll read your other thread love and hugs mel xx
And even when you no longer need to wake! You may find you cannot help it. I have finally given up any attempt to sleep. watching the clock tick the hours away. These are precious moments for you carers, time for intimacies between two people that no one else on earth will share.
hello oldandgrey, thank you for replying to my message. I really didn't think anyone else was out there until i found this site. Everyone has been so supportive and kind. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to reply to me and hope you are well and have a good day today. take care love and hugs mel xx
Hello Mel, sorry I was off reading a reply someone has made to a post I placed back on 7th December. I had to hunt to find what I had said that had provoked the response. Someone has read me completely out of context. All good fun. I am fine a bit chilly so just bumped the heating on. Off to church early this morning, I like to offer a few prayers for my many friends on the site. Hope you are ok and managing to cope. Love Charles xx
thank you again for replying. I am not too bad thank you and am trying to stay strong for darryl my husband, even though it is very hard sometimes. I'm glad you find comfort in the church and wish you well. It's a bit chilly here too today so you make sure you wrap up well before you go out! Well i hope you have a good rest of the day thank you for being so kind. Take care my friend love and hugs mel xx
That's a really good handle. I am notorious for bad spelling and overly long postings. Well you'll be spared the long post because I've got to take my eldest son out Right Now.... I saw your post as I was browsing around and it struck a chord because I suffer from your problem from time to time and when i do, I spend hours listening to my family breathing in the dark. There is a place in our house when I can here all three of them and i sit there thinking about them while drinking. Not recommended but maybe you already know that. See I'm woffling already!
Anyway the point of the posting is that I'm basically in a similar situation to you and I have found that (this is going to sound boring), it's really important to exersice (told you it was boring). I don't know anything about you (sorry if we've talked before and I've forgotton) so you might be an olympic swimmer or something but assuming that you're not, I want to recommend boring old exersice. What's more, I want to recommend that you join a cheap gym if you can afford it. You're going to say that you've not got time but I just want to tell you how I do it and the benificial impact it has on me....
There is a council gym attached the school that my boys go to so after I've dropped them off I go there. It costs £350 for 18 months I think and they open early on a Mon, Wed & Fri. So basically I get exersice three times a week and it's all over by 09:30 including a shower.
The reason why I recommend intensive exersice to you is that the mental strain of being a carer is generally high; it consumes most of my waking hours and many when I am asleep... Without some form of physical exersice, this strain has no outlet; going to bed mentally drained but physically active is not a recipe for rest. Just taking a walk might work for you but it does not work for me (I do walk a lot but this is to sort my head out, I can post you on that if you want). So anyway walking just does not wear me out enough. It's got to be an hour of hard work three times a week.
I know it sounds boring, but it works for me. I do sleep well when I exersice and badly when I don't. If I'd just said that right at the start, you'd not have had to read all this would you?!?!?
Anyway, must go. Scooter needs to be taken to his GIRLFRIEND'S house right now. True love!
i feel for you hun not being able to sleep i really do, we are in totally different situations in our lives but as you know like you i dont sleep well either. i cant offer you any wisdom as why, but just that i sympathise with you as its awful as we all need to sleep to function dont we? especially you when your caring for daryl you must be shattered and it must be very hard when you are always so tired. i hope you manage to sort this sleep problem out .
hello david, thank you so much for your reply to my message. I haven't tried the exercise thing, so maybe go for a run tonight before i try to sleep and see what happens!! Hope you got your son to his girlfriends ok!!! Ah bless him! hahaha Hope your having a good day today and that you are all well? Darryl is having a good day and think having a sunny day is helping with that! He always feels better when it's sunny as he hates the wet dull weather. well Just thought i'd thank you for the suggestion and will let you know how it goes if i try it!! you take care love and hugs mel xx
hello Karen my fellow midnight talker!! good to hear from you again and i hope you're having a good day so far? Darryl is really well today, infact, if you didn't know he had terminal cancer you wouldn't know he was ill at all!! He is at this moment doing some DIY that he won't let me help with so sod the stubborn man!! hahaha Hope he doesn't regret that later!! I can't believe the change in him it's been so dramatic and quick. Mind the sun being out today i think has helped him wake from his hibernation!!! hahaha it's a lovely day so i may go sit in the garden with our never ending energetic beagle pup!! ( where do beagles get all their energy from?) Well hope your having a good day and hope to hear from you very soon. Take care mate and don't forget i'm here if you want a chat anytime. Maybe speak to you at the midnight hour later if your about!!! hahaha love and big hugs mel xxx
