Sleeping finally!

Not too much to report so far this week medically. I have another appointment this Wednesday to check my blood work and order the next round of chemo meds scheduled to start December 4^th. My first post-radiation MRI is a week from today, the Monday before Thanksgiving. It’s at 7:15am which means I’ll still be at work on time and for my full 6 hour day, but that makes for a really long day when I’ll be getting up around 6am. I won’t know the results of the scan until I see my doctors the week after; one on Monday the 2^nd and one on Friday the 6^th. I might know earlier if there’s a severe growth but I highly doubt that and staying positive that there won’t be ANY growth at all. The appointment for the doctor that ordered it is the 6^th, but the one on the 2^nd requested a copy of all reports so hopefully he’ll tell me then.

The best news of all, I’ve started sleeping at night!!! I can’t express how excited that makes me. We visited my parents in NJ this weekend. Friday night, I slept for 10 STRAIGHT hours!! On Saturday night, I slept for 8 straight hours. Then yesterday, I took a nap for 1.5 hours at their house and three 20 minute naps in the car on the way home. Last night, I slept for 7 straight hours. Right now, what’s working is a nightly cocktail of anti-anxiety medication, a cortisol-suppressing over-the-counter supplement, and an ambien. I don’t like that it takes a combination of 3 medications, but hey, I’ll take the sleep, right? 

I also am currently at half the dose of steroid from when I went back on it the week after my last radiation treatment. I had a headache for 4 straights days when I stepped down on Tuesday which finally started to lessen Saturday morning, so it’s helping that my body is getting used to the lower dose and maybe it’s finally low enough that it’s not disrupting my sleep as much. It’s interesting though, even though I’m sleeping so well the last few nights, I’m actually really tired today. I think I’m just so low on sleep cumulatively that a few nights can’t make up for it. Hopefully, this good nighttime sleeping can continue so I can catch up and finally feel back to as close as normal as possible.

The plan is still to step down the steroid dose every other week so I have 4-5 days of headache and at least a week without. I’ll be off all together by Christmas!