I had three hours of sleep last night. I'm running on caffeine and sheer willpower. I can barely put a full sentence together. It is by the Grace of God that I haven't strangled anyone this morning.
Last night was bad. There was this awful line of severe weather with high winds and tornado threats moving through, and Joe was out in it picking up a conference participant at the airport. So, obviously I couldn't really sleep until I knew he was home safe. Then I was up another 45 minutes waiting for the heavy part of the storm to pass. Thunder is annoying. High winds, though, make it impossible for me to sleep.
I was just drifting off when Olivia woke up (after the bulk of the thunder had already passed) and said that the storm scared her. So I went to lay with her in her bed. She proceeded to toss and turn, wide awake, for the next three hours. At that point, I was so tired that I was sobbing. I put her on the couch and turned on the TV at 3:45 a.m., resigned to the fact that if she could be entertained by the TV, at least that meant I could get a couple of hours of sleep before I had to get up and face the day. Normally, TV in the middle of the night would NOT be an option, but IT WAS 3:45 A.M. AND I HAD NOT YET HAD ANY SLEEP. I was desperate.
Of course my desperation and sobbing woke my husband, who had been asleep about three hours at that point. He took matters into his own hands, trying to get Olivia to calm down and fall asleep. He finally succeeded about two hours later, only to have her wake up about an hour after THAT with a bad dream.
Needless to say, we are both very, very tired today. And Olivia gets to take a nap this afternoon, whether she wants to or not.
Recovery-wise, things are going smoothly. Olivia still complains of sore throat when she eats something scratchy, but otherwise she is acting and playing normally. Where she was breathing so loudly before surgery that we could hear her on the opposite end of the house, doors closed and TV on, she now breathes so quietly that we have to watch for the rising and falling of her chest to know she is breathing at all.
All this has translated to better overall sleep as long as nothing wakes her prematurely. That part could be a problem. Even after just six hours (of her usual eleven) of sleep last night, she was refreshed enough to stare wide-eyed at the ceiling for the better part of the night.
The other thing I've noticed is that she hasn't had a bedwetting problem since the surgery. She developed that problem around this time last year, when we started noticing her apnea symptoms. It is really too soon to tell since she was so dehydrated for several days following surgery, but she has been "normal" in fluid intake for the last few days, and still she stays dry all night. I'm thinking maybe she was too tired to get up and potty before. So I'm hoping that trend continues.
The huge downside is that she seems to have developed an allergic reaction to all food dyes. Everything is making her break out. Today is the first day in a week that we haven't dosed her with bena*dryl. We aren't sure that dyes are the cause, but it seems to be the common denominator. We are hoping that avoidance of all dyes takes care of THAT problem.
I am so, so tired.
No comments:
Post a Comment