Night Terrors

I had such a bad night last night. I lay awake - my eyes having inexplicably sprung open as if the alarm clock was ringing at 12.45 am. And I could not get back to sleep. I was uncomfortable and hot - I've stopped my HRT for a while as my hormones seemed a bit healthier, but I'm still getting pretty awful hot flushes, about every 20 mins actually. The doctors say it's because my body was plunged into such sudden menopause that I'm experiencing such dramatic symptoms. The HRT which I've been on for the past year helped with that but I've been keen to try to cope without it as I don't really want to take anything regularly which is associated with dramatic side-effects: I've had quite enough of dramatic health issues to last me a (long) lifetime. However, without it I am subjected to these waves of heat which feel as if they come from my middle and wash over me. It's an unbelievably unpleasant feeling. So at night I'm always at least half awake to push the covers off - then I sleep again and of course get cold which half wakes me again, so I pull them over me again. This makes not for restful sleep!!

And last night I was fully awake..... convincing myself that my stomach ache was certainly the cancer returning. I tossed and turned with flashbacks of awful times in hospital torturing me. I considered tiptoeing downstairs and making some tea and reading but couldn't quite be bothered, so I lay and tossed and turned some more. As you'll know or can imagine, being awake when your three small children are asleep runs contrary to nature for any mother. They're asleep!!! Why the hell are you awake?!!!!

I did go to sleep in the end but, waking to the dulcet tones of the baby at 6am, I felt a little delicate to say the least. And speaking to my brother this morning, he reminded me that I've just thrown off swine flu in the best part of a week without succumbing to pneumonia or bronchitis or any other horrible side-effect which people in my 'high-risk category' might be prone to. It helps to think that my immune system can't be in too bad a shape and it doesn't seem logical to assume that a body which is currently facing a reappearance of cancer could recover from other illnesses so easily.

But it's always this unknown which I live with, and the terror gets me in the middle of the night. I have a CT scan in mid-January and the thought of it is hovering over me like an inescapable black cloud. Will I still be here next Christmas. I bloody hope so and bloody plan to be but really I feel so helpless - there's not much I can do to influence the outcome of this whole story. I'm glad I can't flick through to the end of this tale I'm writing - what a petrifying idea.