Mornings are hardest

Mornings have officially become the hardest (read most painful) part of the day.

A conversation with my case manager a few days ago led to a new routine with the little white pills. Instead of beating down pain by taking a pill or two when I felt uncomfortable "as needed for pain" I'm taking a pill every few hours throughout the day. This keeps the narcotics at a consistent level in my blood and, the idea was, would promote a relatively consistent and acceptable level of comfort throughout the day. The idea worked wonderfully and resulted in two consecutive days during which I felt comparatively comfortable and pain free from wake up until bed time.

I credit the new routine with getting me my first two nights of real sleep. Nights that I slept for nearly six hours before waking for something then going right back to sleep.

Before the new routine my best night was 3½ hours of sleep. Typically after waking there'd be at least an hour of tossing and turning and consumption of meds before dozing for another hour of sleep. Then repeat the tossing/turning/sleep cycle until morning. They weren't very restful nights. An hour or three nap in the reclining chair usually followed sometime during the day.

The bad part of the new routine is the morning. I've been waking about 6:00. The med cycle starts at 9:00. There's no boost in the narcotics from the last dose in the evening until the first dose in the morning. So the morning is the day's lowest concentration of narcotics.

When I wake my jaw hurts, the teeth on the top right hand side of my mouth ache, and all the places where skin was scraped off which healed over during the night protest any movements in the morning. Most of the abraded skin is over joints and there's no way to avoid moving it. Skin over the right shoulder, right knee, and left knuckles all gets moved at least a little from almost any body movement. As a result each of the past two mornings have been adventures in pain. The very act of getting out of bed causes skin to move that has been still and healing for several hours. And even if I lay still and don't move my head aches. OUCH!

So far during recovery everything has felt different after a few days. I'm hoping this follows suit and mornings aren't so unpleasant anymore a few days from now.