Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Sleepy time

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I have such a messed up sleep cycle! It feels like I’ve barely had any sleep for the last couple of weeks. I’ll get tired, finally and then only sleep for about four hours. Then I’m up for anywhere from two to 18 hours before I sleep again.

I think all that lack of sleep came crashing down on my yesterday though. I feel asleep on the couch while Chris and I were watching TV. I’m not sure what time I fell asleep but I’d guess it was 10:30 pm. I woke up briefly when Chris went to bed. I even got up and walked around, but as soon as I settled on the couch again to watch TV I fell soundly asleep until about 4 a.m..

I thought I was up for good at that point, but I started to get really tired again around eight in the morning so I headed for bed this time and slept until noon or so. Yeah I know, sleeping until noon! Unheard of!

Here it is now after 4 pm and I’m starting to feel a bit groggy again. Maybe I’m fighting something else other than inflammatory bowel disease? I’m not going to lie down again this time though. Maybe I’ll actually get to bed at a decent hour tonight and sleep through the night?

Of course it’s the pain that I’m in from the Crohn’s that’s messing up my sleep. As I eat through the day my pain gets worse and worse. I guess the best cure would be to not eat huh?

I saw the pain doctor on Monday and she’s trying me on a new medicine. I haven’t started it yet though as I have such bad reactions to medications sometimes that I want to be sure that Chris will be around and awake for at least four hours the first two or three times I try the new med.

For once the new medication is not a narcotic. It’s a medicine that’s supposed to help with nerve pain called Lyrica (pregabalin). We used to give an older form of this medication to our pain / migraine patients when I worked in a pain clinic many years ago and it did help some people. Hopefully it will help me with my abdominal pain.

One of Lyrica’s side effects is that it might make you tired so I’m supposed to take it at bedtime. Huh? I don’t really seem to have a bed time anymore and if I want Chris to be around and awake when I take it I’m going to have to take it by 6 or 7 pm the first few times I try it out.

I do hope that it helps with my pain and my sleep. I can’t keep going on this way in constant pain with barely any sleep. I can’t.





knocked out

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I’ve been so ill today.

When I finally got out of bed I knew I didn’t feel well enough to sit at my desktop computer to check my email. I get tons of email each day – a good portion of spam, mixed with mail from the five mailing lists I run, blogroll requests (which I haven’t taken care of today, sorry!), comments on our sites, personal emails and direct emails about sick animals (has to do with my mailing lists and websites). So I guess after listing all that you won’t be so surprised when I say that I get 1,000 to 1,5000 emails each day? It takes a long time to go through that pile and I just couldn’t sit at the desktop computer to do that today.

So I lay down on the couch and took care of the email that I’ve set up to be collected on the laptop. I’ll still have more to deal with when I turn the desktop on, but half of it’s been managed in some way or another.

As I went through my mail I was having a lot of pain so I asked my husband to bring me half a percocet. I almost never take percs during the day. Only at night when I’m hoping they’ll take care of my pain enough to let me get some sleep. I take long acting pain meds every 12 hours, plus other medications, but I hold off on the percocet as it hits me too hard.

The half perc put me to sleep. I slept from about 5 pm until 7:30 pm and I’m so woozy now! It’s not good timing either as I have so much work piling up – mostly for this site. Hopefully I’ll perk up soon and feel well enough to do some of the work that needs to be finished!

I just remembered the laundry! I’ve still got to fold and put away all the kids bedding, sheets and towels that I had to do after having a houseful of guests last weekend! Oh boy.

I’m missing out

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I’m not feeling well again today. Are you as sick of hearing that as I am?

It’s a real drag. I had plans for the day. Exciting plans.

I wanted to go downtown and perhaps see one of the films being shown at the Toronto Film Festival. If I couldn’t get into one of the films I’d planned to walk around the area where the majority of films and parties were being held to see if I could spot some stars.

Naturally I would have had my camera with me to take photographs of the stars.

The other thing that I had on the agenda was to plant some plants that I purchased last week. I bought some beautiful carnations, some very cool looking daisies, two different colors of Heather, and some kale and ornamental cabbage plants. I love the last two in the fall as they get quite colorful when the weather gets cool and look very attractive in the garden.

Oh and we also wanted to get some fire glass for our gas fireplace. Man is that stuff cool. We’ve got to get some by the time autumn comes around and we start using the fireplace more often.

Well there’s still tomorrow. Actually the film festivals on all week so there’s lots of time for me to get downtown to do some film and star sightings. I suspect some of the best sightings might be this weekend though.

I’ve had enough

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I had an awful day yesterday. I didn’t sleep and by late morning my stomach started acting up which of course made it impossible to sleep as I had to keep getting up to run to the washroom. Yeah that kind of bad day.

I’m so sick of being sick. I wish I could just get a transplant for my intestines or something.

Buy a clue!

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You know, as bad as Crohns is for me, there’s a few things that come with it that often make me laugh. Well, when I’m in a good mood anyways, sometimes it can be hurtful or insulting.

What am I talking about? Well when people don’t understand the disease. In no way do I expect everyone that I happen to meet or talk to, to become an expert on Crohns, but a little understanding would be nice.

Chris’ family just has NO clue about what crohn’s is. I mean, I’ve only known them for seventeen years and I’ve had crohn’s the whole time. You’d expect that they’d know what I go through, but they don’t.

Chris’ aunt for example is convince that I’ll feels so much better if I do one of those colon cleanse treatments. Well I suppose if I was blocked up maybe I would, but I’ve never read anything about those treatments curing Crohn’s or inflammation of the bowel or healing scar tissue.

Every time I talk to my mother in law she’s surprised if I tell her I’m in pain. If we discuss the fact that I regularly take pain medication she always seems like she’s never heard me talk about it before too. It’s so weird!

What are your in laws like? Obviously mine are a little clueless.

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