leejacksonaudio

I'm getting really tired of sleeping upright. Allow me to explain.

It's damn near impossible for me to lie down flat for any length of time. The reason? The torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder. Lying down puts stress on the tear, no matter which side I lie on: either I get direct pressure from leaning on it, or gravity pulls on it when it's up in the air. Either way, after a very short while, my pain level skyrockets to where it's intolerable. It used to hit somewhere close to a 10 on the 0-to-10 pain scale that doctors like to use to quantify pain, but since my Dilaudid (hydromorphone) dosage got increased, it's more like a 9 or 9.5. Still, we're talking damn-near unbearable pain.

This obviously interferes with my sleep. How does one sleep when one can't lie down to go to sleep? Answer: one sits up and goes to sleep upright, in my case in a recliner because I have to keep my legs elevated (do a Google search on the term HFpEF and you'll see why). I usually put my chin down on my chest and fall asleep that way. It doesn't always work, though, and I find myself not wanting to fall asleep that way at other times just because...well, just because if fscking gets old after a while. I miss putting my head on a pillow and waking up 8 hours later.

As a result, I think I've worked myself into a sleep crisis now. I can't fall asleep when I want to, but I don't want to fall asleep when I need to, and when I need to stay awake, I can't. It's a vicious cycle that would make Mazda and their Wankel engineers proud.

Fortunately, my rotator cuff surgery is...what, 16 days away now? What's December 15th from now? I was never good with date math. Anyway, I'm getting close to the beginning of the end of all of this, or at least I hope I am. Once the healing process takes hold, I'll eventually be able to sleep lying down again. I hope.