Sleep. Â Naps. Â Fatigue, Exhaustion. Â I still have them all. Â I wrote on my bio in 1987 after my pituitary surgery âI am still and always tired and need a nap most days. I do not, however, still need to take whole days off just to sleep.â
That seems to be changing back, at least on the weekends. Â A recent weekend, both days, I took 7-hour naps each day and I still woke up tired. Thatâs awfully close to taking a whole day off to sleep again.
In 2006, I flew to Chicago, IL for a Cushingâs weekend in Rockford. Â Someone else drove us to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for the day. Â Too much travel, too Cushie, whatever, I was too tired to stay awake. Â I actually had put my head down on the dining room table and fallen asleep but our hostess suggested the sofa instead. Â Amazing that I traveled that whole distance – and missed the main event đ
This sleeping thing really impacts my life.  Between piano lessons, I take a nap.  I sleep as late as possible in the mornings and afternoons are pretty much taken up by naps.  I nod off at night during TV. One time I came home between church services and missed the third service because I fell asleep.
I only TiVo old tv shows that I can watch and fall asleep to since I already know the ending.
A few years ago I was doing physical therapy twice a week for 2 hours at a time for a knee injury (read more about that in Bees Knees). Â I come home from that exhausted – and in more pain than when I went. Â I knew it was working and my knee got better for a while, but it’s such a time and energy sapper. Â Neither of which I can really spare.
Maybe now that Iâm nearly 15Â years out from my kidney cancer (May 9, 2006) I’ve been back on Growth Hormone again. Â My surgeon says he âthoughtâ itâs ok. Â I was sort of afraid to ask my endo about it, though but he gave me the go-ahead. Â I want to feel better and get the benefits of the GH again but I don’t want any type of cancer again and I certainly canât afford to lose another kidney.
I always laugh when I see that commercial online for something called Serovital. Â I saw it in Costco the other day and it mentions pituitary right on the package. Â I wish I could take the people buying this, sit them down and tell them not to mess with their pituitary glands. Â But I won’t. Â I’ll take a nap instead because Iâm feeling so old and weary today, and yesterday.
Eventually, I did restart the GH, this time Omnitrope.
And tomorrowâŚ