Surgery Insomnia

I’ve always been a light sleeper which makes for a restless night when sleeping with someone else.  And when I complain about Roger waking between 5 and 6 every day despite the time he goes to bed, my mother reminds me that I did the same. “If you were up until 2 am, you still were up by 6.”

Since pregnancy my sleep has worsened.  I used to be a still sleeper – staying asleep on one side all night long.  With pregnancy, I could never get comfortable and my husband’s coming into bed late (the night owl) would wake me too. Once Roger was born, he slept terribly as an infant.  Through his toddler years he would only nap if in constant motion, which meant I had to walk him around in a baby carrier or stroller (if I sat or stopped walking he would immediately wake up) or drive him for an hour or so twice a day.  During ages 2-4, Roger would wake up extremely early in intervals (a week period of 3 am wake ups) and return to the normal 5 am.  And then, a month later, he’d do the 3 am wake ups again.  It was cyclical.  That did not mean he would go down for his one nap any earlier or, on good days, just skip that nap altogether.  Lucky me, his naps ended at 3 years old, as well. On rare occasions, Roger will still have his extremely early morning wake ups and be up for the day.

I wanted to give you a background of my sleep before delving into this “post-surgery insomnia”.  I realize that immediately following surgery, and the first couple of weeks after, sleep is going to be all messed up due to medications and pain.  I think I actually slept better those first few weeks getting the most sleep I have had in years.  However, the past two weeks or so I have had several days of early morning wake ups (being up for the day ranging from 1am to 4 am).

When I returned to work, the insomnia was not the worst thing since I could work instead of drowning in thoughts of “c’mon sleep” and trying techniques to fall back to sleep.  This morning I awoke at 2 and tried my version of counting sheep.  By 2:45 I decided, instead of lying there and doing nothing and being wide awake, I should just get up and start work and hope for a nap later.  BUT before I did that I googled various searches for post-surgery insomnia.  Most articles dealt with the immediate weeks following, but I found an orthopedic surgeon’s website that wrote about the matter:  “Surprisingly, there are no published studies on the frequency of sleep disturbance several weeks or months following joint replacement surgery. However, in one study of patients with broken bones, 41% of patients with shoulder fractures and 36% of patients with knee fractures had difficulty sleeping 3 months after the injury. Even a year later, 20% of patients still reported insomnia.”   I may not have had joint replacement, but I did have cervical disc replacement with a plate and screws.

My husband suggested I add more whimsy to my blog.  With my lack of sleep, I respond, “Well, tough titties”.