The drugs you are given whilst going through the SCT aren't ever fun, but they are necessary. It seems that they give you a drug to do something and they they give you a drug to counter the side effects of that drug and then they give you a drug to contract the side effects of that drug etc.
What I found was that yesterday they gave me the Rituxan which was the active drug as part of my chemo arrangement. But just in case they gave me a large dose of Solumedrol, a steroid, some tylenol (paracetamol) and benedryl.
What I find is the benedryl makes me really sleepy so just after they have administered that I normally sleep anywhere from two to four hours. After then the sleepy effect of the benedryl has worn off the effects of the steroids kick in and from that point on I can't sleep. Yesterday I was not tired and I tried to sleep at about 10.00pm but to no avail.
Luckily Amy had written me up a sleeping pill so at about midnight I took that and then about 1.00am I finally got to sleep and I woke up around 7.00am with a brief interruption around 5.00am when the nurse came in to check my vitals (and yes I did have a heart beat) and to my surprise I did sleep afterwards.
The thing I find is that hospitals are boring at the best of times. They are even more boring when you're stuck in a cycle of sleeplessness at 2 o'clock in the morning. If I can't get to sleep in about 15 minutes, I will busy myself with a DVD or book or something for an hour or two. If I still can't sleep I'll ask the nurse if I can have something and if I still can't sleep I'll continue to occupy myself with a DVD or something.
The night before my brain surgery I couldn't sleep, probably because of the anxiety after not one but two sleep pills I still couldn't sleep until about 4.00am! They then woke me at 6.00am to prep me for surgery. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, yo just can't sleep. Until next time, stay well:)
No comments:
Post a Comment