I'll Just Be Over Here, Yawning Myself To Death
Thursday, August 30, 2007 I had no idea how exhausting I would find going back to work, but since I started back on Monday, I have been getting a pretty clear idea. I originally had this completely unfounded notion that two months following my hysterectomy would find me up and about and ready to take on cubicle life with a vigor heretofore unknown in the world of cubicle farms. I obviously did not do my research.
On Monday morning, I walked to the bus filled with an orderly sense of purpose. I was going to work! My life was back where it should be! I felt a completeness when I revisited my pre-hysterectomy habits and purchased a coffee and a muffin on my way to the office. I could do this work thing! It was time! I sat at my desk, drank my coffee, and started working my way through a backlog of four hundred and seventy plus e-mails. I felt productive and, for the first time in a long while, pleasant.
Until 10:30 a.m. Halfway through my morning and two hundred e-mails later, a sodden lump of exhaustion settled itself into my lap, and before I knew it, I felt like several hundred pounds of wet sludge. My skin ached, I was so drained. So, in an effort to battle the fatigue, do you think I took deeper breaths? That I got up to get more coffee? No. I wept. Actually, what I did was more pathetic than true weeping. I dropped my head to my chest, stopped breathing, and allowed three or four hot tears to seep out from my lowered lids. Luckily, I have a quick turnaround time when I get that pathetic, because I have a cousin who used to do the head-drop, tear-squeeze move when we were kids, and I hated it. I hated watching it happen to someone else then, but it is quite another, much more serious, matter to feel your own face contorting into a display of abject wretchedness, even if the only witnesses are a tape dispenser and a broken calculator.
I dabbed a few tears from my eyes, took some deep breaths, told myself that I could too get another cup of coffee, and plunged myself into a battle with sleep that has lasted for four days. No one told me that I would be this tired even after my body began to feel normal again. Were I the sort who lived in reality, I might have taken note of the fact that, as recently as two weeks ago, doing a simple task such as washing dishes meant I had to take a nap, but no, I prefer to wander around in a peachy denial that would have me believe I was going to be running lively and free through green fields, glorying in being alive as though life were a shampoo commercial. I have done some asking around to find out if what I am experiencing is reasonable, and apparently, this weariness could go on for months. Months. M-O-N-T-H-S.
I guess that I could decide to be cup-half-full about it and look at this as an opportunity. I have been getting a lot of e-mails from Russian women who offer to send me photos of themselves, but not before they tell me how tired they are. They write to me and say: I am tired this evening. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you... Mind me sending some of my pictures to you? We have photography and tiredness in common! We could be friends! Those Russians are such a tired but friendly people.
This took me a very long time to write, because 1) I was tired, 2) I was hungry, and 3) I kept taking breaks to drop hints to the Palinode that we need Asian takeout, stat. The wonton soup and fresh rolls rallied me a bit, but I kept nodding off. I think I'm thirty-four going on eighty-five.
Reader Comments (10)
I read your twitter that said you were in bed yesterday, and I was so happy to hear you were taking good care of yourself. Maybe a little too happy. Possibly I need to get a life, instead of rejoicing over the sleeping habits of people I've never met. Sweet dreams!
New to your blog and loving it.
I had ovarian cancer and a hysterectomy last October. It is refreshing to hear from another walking this road.
Go gentle with yourself. It takes a long time to have energy again.
So glad to have found you.
trinity67 said: Keep listening to your body Schmutzie. I'm thinking of you and sending out good thoughts.
Well there is what I suggested yesterday. And I will be nagging you about that next week. So, look forward to that.
There is of course the option of me keeping an adrenaline shot in my desk for you. Or - and this one is my favorite- every two hours I pull you out of your chair and we http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vro00XQfEd0&mode=related&search=" REL="nofollow">dance dance, dance.
The last surgery I had was March 2006, to reconstruct a deforming hole left by the removal of cancer.
I have been worn out since the first surgery in December 2005. Truly. It's funny because I tell everyone I know how I'm a 28 year old trapped in a 95 year old body.
But, over the past month or so, I have felt my energy finally returning just a little bit. Enough that I can still carry on a coversation up until about 11:00 pm. Used to be about 7 or 8 and I was done.
I think it's normal. I don't understand why they don't warn you about it, help you prepare for it.
Maybe because most people with cancer are so ill otherwise, it hasn't been noticed?
At any rate, I hope you allow yourself to be tired, and rest when you need to. Your body has a lot of recovering yet to do, your heart even more.
Wishing you what you need,
Tekoa
ok sweetsopt there's a coupla things maybe you're forgetting here.
1. When most people have been off work for an extended amount of time they usually go back to work for partial shifts and gradually work into the full 8 hours. Where I work you start at 3 hours - for a week, then 4 hours for a week, then 6 then 8. Talk to your HR people - you are obviously not ready for full days and that is perfectly - sorry gotta say it - normal.
2. On top of another system change - different awake sleep hours, your 28 day cycle is still there, your body just doesn't function the same way through it. Check the calendar. we all know we get extra tired around then.
3. not only was there a full moon but a total lunar eclipse earlier this week - right when you were going back to work. no matter what anyone says I sleep very little for the 3 days around the full moon and then i crash.
Love yourself like we love you and realize that this shit takes time - so let it :)
PS that girl - great suggestion dance dance dance
You will sleep now, and when you awaken, you will feel refreshed and energized. (And then maybe you'll have enough energy to blow a little bit on visiting my blog, because at long last, I have responded to being tagged.)
Please keep taking care of yourself--and I hope you can wangle that part-time arrangement wench mentioned. (Hey that almost teetered into poetry, didn't it?)
It can't be overstated that your body has been through a MAJOR trauma. When the sleep thing rights itself...the other stuff should follow.
I can totally relate to the muffin top in the early evening and I have not had surgery. I found the picture quite funny although the feelings behind having a muffin top not funny. And I want to say that your saying "hello" to the infant fetishers out there was very very funny. I like your humor.
I hope you can talk to HR and get on a half day schedule. It really really helped me on my returns to work, and both my surgeries were much much less than yours. I did half days for two weeks, then worked up to full days at the end of the month.
I shalt send you dancing super fun times energetic thoughts in the meantime. DANCE DANCE!