Sleep

Kan,

I have been off chemo for years, but have a very odd and irregular schedule.   I go in late afternoon, and get off at 3:00 AM (getting in bed around 4:00 AM), but work four days a week, so it is impossible to transition back to a "normal" schedule on my three days off.   Some days I take a Unisome, which they claim is non-habit forming (it has never been habit-forming for me). It is OTC of course.   I also run a floor fan for "white noise" to keep from hearing noises from outside during the day.

I would ask my oncologist before using it, and I am not "recommening" it, just sharing what I sometimes have to do.   Also, the active ingredient in Unisome is different from the other big brands, and the other big brands DO NOT WORK for me, no idea why.  It takes about an hour for the drug to begin to be effective for me, and one dose really keeps me asleep for around ten hours, so plan on it affecting you for some time.

I do not know where your picture is from, but my grandfather was a wheat farmer in centeral Kansas (Rooks County).  The views were stunning out there -- you could see forever.  His nearest neighbor was so far away you had to drive to get there.  No noise, ever. A car might drive past twice a day; airliners were too high to hear, or hardly even see.  People on the coasts call it "fly over country."  We prayed, "Plese keep flying over; don't come here and destroy this heaven on earth."    A better way of life.

max

I have found that it is not just my sleep pattern that has been changed by the chemo. My body thermostat is messed up. I've always been freezing when it's below 70 and loved sitting outside when it is 80 or higher. Now the 60s are comfortable although I still grab a sweater if it is in the low 60s. When it starts getting to 80 or 90, I am in the shade or inside. It is just too hot for me. 

Energy level is slowing getting better. It's been about 8 months since my last chemo. I have found that if I get 8 - 9 hours sleep/rest I do pretty good the next day. When I get around 7 hours I can feel that I am slowing down by the afternoon. Days when I get only 6 hours I am useless in the afternoon and need to take a 20 min nap when I get home. I can do my workout at Curves without taking a break now. This helps some with the strength. Back in Dec I would have to rest for 5 mins at least twice. I have found the more I walk during the day the better I feel by evening. My problem is that it is easy to walk more at work. It's a long walk from my desk to the elevators and the bathrooms are near the elevators. At home everything is closer so I find the only way I get a lot of walking done on weekends is to go to the store. 

I guess I am just hard on myself. Each time I try an activity I haven't done since before chemo and get tired, then I make it my goal to keep at it until I don't get so tired. Twelve years ago I broke my left leg near the ankle and a year later I had a hysterectomy. After my first chemo last year I ended up having surgery for a perforated bowel (thanks to the tumor shrinking). All three situations resulted in me being fairly inactive for 4 - 6 weeks, then slowly getting more active. But I was back to my old level after about 2 months. I am guessing it is because those situations affected the physical. Chemo affects the core of our system, the blood and lymph.  Everytime I get a blood test I think "this time the counts will be getting back to where they wer a year ago". They never are. Looks like we measure recovery in years, not weeks or months.