The Day I Slept Away

I wasted today.

Not on purpose and I'm quite irritated that I didn't get to do any physio.  But it was such a weird day.

I woke up, as usual, around 5:30am and had the back and forth with the night nurse about putting plastic on my wounds so I could shower. They can never figure out if they should be protecting it from water (there's only steri-strips on it now), or not, or whether it is the night nurse that will do it, or I have to wait for the day nurse, blah, blah, blah.  Who knew it was such a production - if I could reach my back, I would do it myself.   Anyway, final decision was that protective covering is no longer required.

Excellent.   On my way. I had a mild headache and asked for the Tylenol early.

Shower accomplished means one thing,  coffee run! While wheeling my way to the coffee shop, I wasn't feeling quite 100% .. something a little weird with my head (ha ha, I know, I know), my stomach a little off. Maybe it would be a good day to scale it back and just work hard at physio and otherwise just laze around.

9:30am .. headache kicks in, full force.  I'm not a headache person - I don't really get them and when I do they usually aren't strong enough to incapacitate me.   But Holy Wow ... this was as doozy - even with the painkillers I'm regularly taking.  Sitting up was next to impossible because it brought on the nausea.  Peeing was an adventure - how to get to the bathroom and back fast enough that I didn't a) pass out or b) puke. I slept, and slept, and slept.  And ignored my lunch food tray (you know something's wrong when I ignore food). Woke up briefly for painkillers which did nothing for the heachache, and more sleep.  Gravol and more sleep.

My apologies to my father and uncle who stopped by to visit - I was improving but still practically incoherent. I was also absolutely and totally incapable of either physio session today, which was really disappointing. Right now every day matters, and we're heading into a long weekend where I won't get physio for three days.  Aaarrgh !

I'm usually the one out and about, I'm rarely in my room, or if I am, I'm sitting in a chair by the window doing something.  But today I was enough of a changed person that even the nurses were concerned and had the on-call doctor stop by.  She said virus, I said withdrawal from the Decadron.

I read that it is possible to have withdrawal even after a tapered session, and classic symptoms are headache and nausea. I have absolutely no credibility to say it was withdrawal, no scientific evidence nor am I a doctor or a pharmacist.  I just have a very low tolerance for drugs and they affect me immediately and strongly. I am totally unqualified to make that statement.

I just know me. And Dr. Google.

But as I head off to sleep, the headache is 90% gone, and tomorrow should be a new day.