Sleeplessness and Similies

Awoke at 5AM, couldn't sleep. Boo.
Busy day today. OT, PTA, Diamond cutters. Doesn't look busy but for my limited energy expenditure it will be. So frustrating.
If someone were to ask me what was the largest hurdle to overcome throughout my entire recovery I would have to say that the fatigue factor wins hands down. No matter how good you slept the night before, no matter how nutritious and energy boosting the meal plan, no matter how pumped up you are to have the best day ever, fatigue or low energy can still wreck all your plans. So incredibly frustrating. Some days making breakfast puts me on the couch for a good hour. Walking the dog around the block can bring on a three hour nap. It amazes me that despite my being active for ten months now, I still feel like I've just been discharged from rehab. The weariness, the droopiness. The sleeplessness.
My banyani recommended Badger Sleep Balm for enhancing slumber. Lovely citrus lavender scent. Rub it on your temples, under your nose and bam!, you're put out like a light. Most nights.
Insomnia has always been a friend of mine. Sleepless nights for no reason other than my brain won't shut down for sleep. Always running, constant ticking. Deep yogic breathing helps sometimes. I'll think back to my time at the Vipassana retreat where even there I still had bouts of insomnia. Despite a waking silence, the mind will not quieten down. I've counted so many sheep that I could make a sweater from all the wool caught in the fence. When I was little I used to think that they should make a nighttime film reel to play on the wall opposite your bed. Sheep jumping over the fence. Polar bears skating in circles. Headbangers doing their thing on repeat. What ever the fancy. I wonder if I should patent these sleepless mind farts, in case there's money to be made from the madness that ensues.
Pain keeps me up. In my back, in my heels, in my foot. Burnings, pulsating, creeping, nagging. A painless night is a treat. Eat it by the spoonful, enjoy it till the reprieve is over. I finally got an appointment at the Wasser Pain Clinic by playing the employee card I didn't realize I had. One of my physician colleagues spoke to the head MD of the emerg, and he spoke to the head of the pain clininc. They made an appointment for me. Maybe this will help. Pain clinics are a wealth of knowledge for just about anything. I am hoping they will have sleeplessness clinics. Coping strategies to make it through the day. I am coping for now but soon the long acting pain meds will have to be weaned down.
I never tell anyone that I am terrified of the pain coming back. I remember those days in hospital where something was on fire and I was too immobilized to do anything except cry and press the call button for the nurse. One night when the pain in my foot was tag teaming with my general discomfort and back pain, I rang for the nurse and an ally appeared. An agency nurse, picking up a shift that night. She came in, all in white, middle aged.
"What do you need, honey?" she said tiredly.
"for my pain to stop," I warbled, tears streaming down my cheeks.
The nurse rounded the bed, her eyes sweeping my small broken form. She helped me reposition, Helped me roll from side to side, tuck a pillow under my aching side.
"I remember where you are," she said. She told me that 20+ years prior she had been in a bad car accident, had been t-boned at an intersection by a impatient driver who had sped through and not seen her till to late. Her back was a mess, multiple fracture down one side. She said it took a few months in hospital, even double in rehab before she felt like herself again. She couldn't sit for long periods of time and felt numb down the left side of her body. She felt the financial disparity of her situation and went back to work too early.
"I see you lying here and you remind me so much of myself back then." She was leaning against the bed, rubbing my foot. "I know how frightened you are. "It's almost worse to be a health care professional and a patient because you are privy to the inside scoop of what's really going on."
I could feel my eyes filling up again as I listened to her tell her story. More than anything, her story was filing me with hope that I do would recover and nurse again. I was really missing it during those first few days on the Trauma unit. Add to that the enormous amount of stress this situation was causing in every aspect of my life, well, it's no wonder I was crying about foot pain. I could have cried 1000 oceans of tears and may not even touch the surface off all that was troubling me. Grief is like a layer cake, the superficial aspects don't take long to show themselves but as the trajectory of accident moves along, the deeper issues begin to show themselves. I am now just starting to understand what the actual impact of this accident has had on my life, with more to follow I'm sure. The legal end, for starters. Whoa.