Trials of a Cancer Insomniac

I really don't know what has been going on lately, but for whatever reason, I haven't been sleeping well since my operation.  Being unemployed, this isn't too big of a deal, because I can always sleep in late, and the basenjis don't seem to mind since sleeping is pretty much all that they do all day anyway.  Well, that and beg, and insist that they go outside, I mean come in, nope back out, um back in, etc.  However, for my wife, being employed, it is more of a problem.  When I slide in to bed at two or three or four, I don't just quickly slide in to bed.  I have to try to do it without disturbing the dogs who have taken over my side of the bed.  And if you do disturb them, the timid rescued one inevitably steps on the old grumpy one, who growls and makes whatever noise that is that basenjis make, which is a sound just horrible enough to wake everyone up.

Now I may not know why I am not getting tired, but I do know why I am having trouble falling asleep when I do finally lay down.  I don't know about other cancer patients, but it seems like there is nothing worse than being alone with your thoughts.  When it is dark and quiet, regardless if you are watching TV or reading (I occasionally will pick up a magazine or one of those things that look like thick magazines with less pictures and harder covers), your mind goes to what consumes most of your thoughts and more than likely what you have been purposely trying not to think about all day.  During the day, you can always call someone, even if it is just your health insurance company to chat with them to say, despite previous reports, you DO still have insurance with them and you would appreciate them paying the $16,900 bill you just received in the mail.  Or during the day you could text someone, or if you wife is home you can start holding you side (try to remember which side your surgery was on, it makes it more believable if you hold that side) and moan when you pick up the trash bag, the dog, the ice cube tray, or anything else that she expects you to do yourself.  At night, all of these options are gone.  And with no one to steer you thoughts, the ever present thoughts creep in.

One of the things I have been doing when I can't sleep is blogging (I don't know if I should apologize for that or not) and playing on the computer.  No matter what I start out looking for on the computer, eventually I end up adding cancer to the search at some point during the night.  In some ways that has helped.  Bored and restless, one night I just typed in "funny testicular cancer t-shirts" and I was amazed and how many popped up!  My favorite saying "I kicked testicular cancer in the ball".  I have also found out a lot about cancer types and treatments, including things that told us that Dr. Jekyll was taking us in a vastly different direction than any other oncologist that does not possess a bone in his nose and dance around a fire yelling "ooga booga".  But then again, search the internet long enough and you will find at least one person that has gone to a doctor with a bone in their nose and dancing around the fire while ooga-boogaing and it cured their cancer.

There are some good things about being on the internet late and searching out answers to you cancer questions (would that be canswers?), and that is when you are mentally tired, you tend to be more honest with yourself emotionally.  I find myself late at night on the various support group websites, asking questions about my treatment and answering others questions.  It seems that the very second you hear your cancer diagnosis, there is one aspect of cancer you are instantly an expert in, and that is how it feels to have cancer.  You see more topics on cancer emotions than treatment, or life expectancy, or anything else.  And on a lot of the message boards, it is a caretaker asking the cancer consortium why their loved one is acting the way that they are.  For some reason it makes you feel better to know that you are helping others with their cancer journeys, whether they are the cancer patient or their loved ones attempting to care for them.  It sometimes feels like you're helping someone else on their journey, but you have no idea where you are going on yours.  Who knows, my wife may be on one of those boards asking if anyone gets called "mean" in a blog if they don't bring their cancer stricken spouse ice for their Pepsi.

Let me break for just one second and give a warning about late night internet surfing when you aren't really thinking about what you are typing.  Let's say that someone had offered to give you an old Ford economy car that is no longer roadworthy, and you are looking for some ideas on how to use the engine, transmission, etc.  Now this is the voice of experience speaking here, I would advise AGAINST typing into your search engine the phrase "things to do with old Escort".  That brought up a series of links that weren't very helpful at all.  Now I have another reason I won't be able to sleep.  And if you can't figure out what kind of pages that will suggest for you, type it in yourself.  I dare you!

The thing about being up late and being mentally spent for the day, is the emotions you have been suppressing all day come to light.  You find tears welling up in your eyes, and it's not just from the scary things that old escorts will do for money.  And the thing is, I don't know if that is necessarily good or bad.  Is it better to keep those emotions buried?  Or should you not let your body get to the point that those emotions surface?  Who's to say?

When I do finally get to the point where my body is exhausted, or I know I simply must lay down and try to fall asleep, that is when my mind's search engine goes crazy.  Two things happen.  Either I am still semi-coherent and my brain is trying to plan out the next ten years and fix all the damage to my life plan that the cancer has just threw out of whack.  Or I am dead tired physically and emotionally and that is when the wildest thoughts and images seem to flash through my mind.  No rhyme or reason really to any of them.  It's almost like someone took a thousand random photographs and magazine advertisements and threw them on the ground in a pile and I am trying to put them all into the same memory.  You could have a picture of you in front of the Christmas tree in your pajamas mixed in with a dolphin jumping in the ocean with new trombones half off and a picture of the Lincoln Memorial and me giving my hat to a monkey.  OK, the last one really did happen, but I was five and I thought the monkey looked cold.  But that is the only way I can think to describe the thoughts that race through my mind.  You lie down and are either drowning in cancer thoughts which just gets you pissed off that again the cancer is screwing up your way of life, or you mind is on overload and it's dumping all of its memory into your visual cortex and you are trying to process it all as you drift off to sleep.  With both situations, you end up jolting yourself awake several times before you fall asleep for good, just in time to hear the alarm go off.

Your nightlife ends up being in that state of limbo where you would love to lie down next to the person that has been your rock and support through all of this and just hold them, but at the same time dreading the mental torment your mind is going to throw at you as thoughts breech the confines of your consciousness unabated.  So that is the dilemma and I end up blogging late and accidentally looking up the activities of senior citizen hookers and my wife falls asleep holding a dog.