DAY 26 – STILL STRUGGLING

Another terrible sleep, even with sleeping pills I can’t get a full nights rest. I went to bed feeling pretty good, still tender and very cautious in my movements but feeling positive about today. I must have slept from 10 pm until about 2 am before being awoken by the nurse checking on me. This nurse wasn’t a regular nurse on our floor and she’s disturbed me in the past by coming in my room in the middle of the night to pull up the side frames on my bed as if I’m going to fall out. She did this again last night and then when she left I had to get up to turn the bathroom light off, not just once but the next time she checked in too! All the other nurses use a small flashlight when doing their night checks and never turn the light on so this was a bother right from the start. Anyway I couldn’t get back to sleep until I decided to take some of my regular medication from home that I’ve not been taking as I’ve just been going with the hospital prescriptions. Well it worked and I fell asleep again until about 7:45 am when I awoke again in great pain. The pain had really developed since I’d fallen back to sleep and it was my tailbone again.
Growing up in Calgary I’ve had my share of slips to the butt on ice and know very well that cracked tailbone feeling and that’s exactly what it felt like. So I buzz the nurse to tell her about my pain and she sends the doctor in quickly and I requested some pain killers. Linda came by on schedule to do my electrical wave therapy at 8:20 am and again determined that I wouldn’t be doing physio. Andy was still coming in to my room to do acupuncture when I somehow explained to him where I was hurting and he changed his mind. He left and returned with a contraption that he strapped around my waist that covered my backside and had me lay flat on my back. He plugged it in and said “forty min” as he usually tells me how long he’ll leave me for whatever treatment he’s giving. This belt heated up and vibrated sending out ultrasound waves or something, I don’t really know what it did but by the end of forty minutes I felt a whole lot better!
The whole day was very typical for the week, I didn’t do much and most of it was very uncomfortable. By midday I was concerned that I hadn’t heard back from the doctor about my final bone marrow transplant scheduled for tomorrow so I had the nurse confirm that it was still on. Yes it is which is good on one hand because I want to get this all over yet scary on the other. I didn’t receive my notification slip about the procedure as usual and I was worried that they had some concerns and might not go ahead with it. Well tomorrow at 11:00 am I’ll be wheeled into the transplant room one last time, hopefully my experience tomorrow will be a lot easier this time around!
LC