No, seriously, SLEEP.

Oh sleep. 

You never know how good you have it until you don't. On the steroids sleep is incredibly hard. I am taking three kinds of sleep medication nightly, and it is still rough. The steroids simply do not let me sleep no matter how tired I am. There is no way to CBT-i my way out of this. I am getting about 3-4 hours of sleep a night between a "long sleep" and some dozing. 

Recently,  I took every sleep med I was allowed. I was desperately tired, but even after resting in bed for a while in the afternoon, I could not sleep/nap. The lights turned off a handful of minutes after 10pm after taking every sleep-related med I am allowed. Then, the cat went NUTS for a while. Hard to know how long, but when Chris is the one to lock him out it had gone on too intensely for too long. Then, I fell asleep (falling asleep the first time at night is usually not the issue). I was convinced I would sleep for days. I woke up by 11:36pm. 

Unfortunately, my stomach was hurting again. AND, in my stupor I did not re-apply lidocaine patches to my legs. So, I got up and attended to these things. I did not fall asleep very soundly again. I know I dozed for a while. I even dreamed(!!) and when I woke up from one dream I was so happy I had been asleep I checked the clock (which I don't usually do)... I was asleep for like 15 minutes. Well, I guess it counts. 

I feel badly because by the end of the day I have very little patience left. I am exhausted but closing my eyes is futile. Also, I feel like my alarms will just be going off for meds anyhow because I have about seven set per day. 

The good news is that it is the holidays, so I can certainly keep busy while I am awake with things that are not just scrolling various apps and news. I canned apple butter at 5:30am. I wrapped some presents. I packaged little cookies for colleagues. 

The good news is that I am tapering the steroids, so I am hopeful that I will feel a little better as the dosage decreases.