Sleep Deprivation

Sleep, it's something we take for granted. We often hear people say "I'll sleep when I'm dead", or "I'll pull an all-nighter", or better yet, "What is sleep?".

Well well well ... let me tell you what it is my friends.

After seeing mom in her hospital bed with IV lines hooked up to her arms, it is quite difficult to put yourself in a restful state. For the next three days, in that three-bedded room, sleep became a stranger to me for multiple reasons.

There were only 2 thin folding chairs at her bedside.
The incessant beeping of the IV pumps.
The untimely visits of medical staff in the room for the other patients and for my mom as well.

Given that my cousin and I were the main family members at mom's bedside at all times, the folding chairs were always occupied. I never got restful sleep at the hospital; I would at best take 20-minute power naps before another noxious stimuli violently jolted me back to a hyper-alert state. The chairs were uncomfortable (I would occasionally squeeze myself in mom's bed just to relieve my neck pain from sitting up), the surrounding noises were irritating, but the worse of them all was the loud routine of the night shift workers. You might call it culture shock, healthcare edition. When I was in nursing school, we were taught to prioritize rest. After all, sleep promotes healing. At the hospital mom was staying at though, it seems that that notion didn't exist. I remember the first time I was bothered was at 03:00am in the morning. A doctor or resident (my memory was hazy because it was witching hour) "woke" me up in order to get consent for mom's surgery: a left occipital craniotomy for tumor resection. However, it wasn't a simple "explain the benefits and risks" kind of consent-taking; it felt like I was signing my mom's life away as multiple signatures from my end were required in this lengthy document that was presented to me. "Sign here, and here, and here ..." stated the individual nonchalantly to me. "F... off, come back later" is what I would have wanted to tell him. Nonetheless, these difficult decisions had to be done. I read the forms as thoroughly as I can half-awake before imprinting my signatures on the required lines. As I return the forms back to whoever he was, my thoughts begin to race: "What if I made the wrong call? What if something unexpected happens? Will mom make it after the surgery?" And once again, sleep no longer wanted to befriend me.

The next day, mom was scheduled for a seven-hour long operation. When they wheeled her bed away en route for surgery, I remember thinking that all I could do now was wait, or better yet sleep. But, all I could do was sit in the void counting down the hours. When the seventh hour came along, and no news of my mother was heard, my body filled with worry. "Did something go wrong?" "Why is it taking so long?" "Is mom okay?" In conclusion, sleep deprivation + anxiety = emotionally unstable Cristine. I cry silently behind the curtains where mom's bed used to be and pray to God that everything is okay ...

Two hours later, I hear a cardiac monitor in the hallway. When I get out of mom's room, I see the anesthetist and other staff members push a bed in which my mom is lying in. One of them comes to talk to me to say that the surgery was successful, but that she has lost more blood than they anticipated and that it took her longer than expected for her to wake up from the anesthesia. I only got a few seconds to glance at her before she was being wheeled to the Neuro ICU, where she would stay for the next three days for closer monitoring. Given her change of location, the nurses inform my cousin and I that we will have to gather all her belongings from her previous room and go to the ICU's waiting room area. We pack up and settle ourselves there.

The ICU waiting room area was comprised mostly of bigger and comfortable chairs. The only drawback: they were not reclinable. The ICU had very strict visiting hours (from my memory, it was probably one-hour visits three times a day). Hence, most of the 72-hour ICU stay was spent sitting. And once again, insomnia from back and neck pain began.

Once mom was out of ICU, we finally had a private room with a TV, a couch, and a chair. You would think that at that point on, my sleep would improve ... and you were wrong.

The first night spent there, I remember a group of nurses came into the room at 3 or 4am, turned on all the lights in the room and stated (or shouted in my opinion), "Good morning ma'am, how are you? My name is so and so. We will be your nurses for the night. We will just take your vital signs ok?" "What the absolute f...ery is this?" I told myself in my head while covering my eyes with my hands. The nurses then began to do their assessments while speaking loudly and it pissed me the HELL of. A few nights like these occurred going forward.

To top of all the insomnia factors, mom's condition throughout her healing process made sleep very scarce for all of us. With limited speech and unrelieved nocturnal leg cramps (more details on post-op complications next week!), mom would often knock on her metal side rails to call one of us to massage her legs. My cousin, my brother (who stayed two weeks with us), and I would each take turns giving mom leg massages in hopes to alleviate the pain for a couple of hours.

By week 3, polite Cristine became grumpy and emotionally unstable Cristine, and it showed.

There were many times when I had zero reserves to keep a conversation going and just stared blankly in space. There were moments when I had to escape mom's room for a bit and go to the hospital's chapel to seek solace and peace. There were always instances when I prayed to God for all of this to finally come to an end.

Fortunately, there was one day where family friends offered for me to stay the night just to catch up on the accumulating lack of sleep. Although initially reluctant to accept as I did not want to leave mom's bedside, my cousin urged me to go rest. And I did. Those were the most restful seven hours I got there.

Three Filipino puppies sleeping on the cool tile floors

So ... what is sleep?

Sleep is the essence of a healthy functional brain.

It is necessary for recovery and well-being.

It is not something you should sleep on (pun intended!)

Moral of the story: PRIORITIZE YOUR SLEEP!

P.S. On a lighter note, I had written the following poem after catching some sleep. Enjoy! :P

Sleep

I stopped keeping track

Of how many hours I get

I can’t sleep on my back

I have pain in my neck

Chairs are my besties

They are what I lean on at night

Sike, they are my enemies

They are why I’m sleep deprived

I can’t stretch out my legs

I can’t find a comfortable position

I miss being in a bed

Instead of chairs lined up in a side by side fashion

I try to keep a routine

But since I am jet lagged

I adapt to whatever scene

Comes my way, it’s a drag

I nap when I can

That means in 30 mins bits

I’m testing how long I can withstand

Before I start acting like a b*tch

Yet I don’t seem to be grumpy

I tend to laugh at everything

I’m happy with Jollibee

I’m surprised I’m surviving

But I know this is short term

At the end, it’ll be worth it

Because sooner or later

I’ll sleep in peace and quiet

Sleep Deprivation

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