Health

🥲

Wow it’s been a long time since I last blogged.

It’s been so tiring and exhausting lately, ever since the change in job scope at work. Still trying to settle in to this role of having to talk (email) to random strangers, colleagues at work etc. This is just not me.  I felt so drained at the end of the day – everyday. Sigh.

I desperately need a vacation – but I can’t. I can’t really afford it when I do not know when my Dad will have to be hospitalized again, and whether we will be slapped with another 3k bill again.  My mom has all the money but she refused to pay a single cent.

All these have been affecting my sleep lately… I could be sleepless one night, only to be extremely tired the other day and finally managed to sleep properly.  It’s just a vicious cycle at this point.  I’m just so tired mentally…

As per title.. sigh.

And one week more to my trip too.  Why does my insomnia came back, and at this time too?

Sigh……..

So many things happened at the same time.

My insomnia is still not improving.  The culprit is suspected to be from one of the chinese herbs that my TCM gave me, but it has been almost a month and the situation has not reversed yet.  =(

And then my dad was hospitalized, and was found to have heart failure.  He seemed to have suffered a silent heart attack two weeks back and a large portion of his heart tissue had already died, with 3 arteries blocked.  The hospital deemed a heart bypass not suitable due to the dead heart tissue, and thus decided to stent two of his arteries.

I’m not sure how long he still has to live, but let’s just hope for the best…

11 sleepless nights in a week.

Only slept well the night before (Wednesday), probably because my body was really too tired from the lack of sleep.

Didn’t manage to sleep enough again last night.  Drifted off to sleep at about 10:30pm, woke up at around 11:50pm.  Then drifted off to sleep again and in between was conscious of my movements… but I think I still somewhat kind of power-napped in between because I wasn’t aware when my dad came home from his night shift.  So I guess I was asleep between 2+am to 3+am.  Woke up at around 4+am (I assumed), and I resisted the urge to reach for phone to look at the time.  Tossed and turned a fair bit, trying to sneak in some sleep in between to no avail.  Finally, I gave up and reached for the phone at around 5.11am or so.  Was already rather awake, so no point trying to go back to sleep.  Browsed some forum, read up on some insomnia articles etc… and then got ready for work.

My mental state now isn’t too bad, I’m just really tired of not being able to sleep at night.  I really did try to clear my mind, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t actively thinking or panicking but somehow at some point my heartbeat will accelerate and I have no idea why.  It’s actually quite mentally exhausting.  To the point where I’m thinking if I should quit my job and try to find something that doesn’t require me to report to work at a fixed timing.

I wish, eh…. it’s not like I’m in the creative line…

Hey Reko, you need an artist + an admin assistant or something? Wanna hire me and Bruno?  XD

I’m so tired.  Could hardly fall asleep on my own last two weeks – had to depend on Fedac to sleep.  Sometimes if I’m lucky, I can fall into a deep sleep after taking Fedac, but most times I’d be drifting in and out of sleep even after Fedac.  Body would be so warm at night that I would wake up even in a drug-induced sleep.

Geez, and I don’t even know what caused this.  All I know is the anxiety of not being able to fall asleep is adding on to the insomnia.

I downloaded a sound app yesterday and tried to use it last night while staying off the pill.  Not sure if it really helped or I’m just really too tired, but I think I did sleep a little.  I still drifted in and out of sleep though – went to bed at around 9.30pm, tossed and turned in bed (my eyes were closed but my mind was rather awake as I can still hear the sounds from the app), drifted to sleep a little, but woke up fully at around 11.45pm because I was too hot, despite having the aircon turned on.  I switched on the fan, and tried to go back to sleep again.  I was even aware of the exact moment the sound app had stopped (I set timer to 4 hours), so I was apparently still drifting in and out of sleep at 1.30am (apparently my mind was awake then) since my sound app was supposed to end at that time.  I was aware of every turn in the bed, even though my eyes were closed.

It was a restless “sleep” – if you would call that a sleep.  But well, on the positive side, I didn’t take Fedac.  However, after such fitful “sleep” for the past two weeks, I’m literally looking like a panda now, and generally feeling tired throughout the day.

I certainly hope the situation will improve.  I have no idea why this is happening geez.  I’m not stressed about anything either.  Please just let me have a good sleep every night….

So yeah.  Last Monday (5th June 2017) night, I suddenly had a bout of BPPV.  While I was drifting off to sleep, I turned to my right and realised something was wrong – the room started spinning (even though my eyes were closed).  So, I shifted to lie on my left again, and the spinning slowed down significantly, and off I drifted to sleep.

Fast forward one hour, my body was woken up by the extreme spinning – because I had unwittingly laid on my right again.  This time, even though I shifted back to lie on my left didn’t work anymore – the whole room just kept spinning.  I tried to sit up, walk, stand – it’s just the same.  It just spun non stop, to the point I was feeling extremely nauseous.  I was just thinking – okay should I wake my parents up to send me to the hospital?

I forced my wobbly legs to move to get to the toilet – I don’t know how I did it, but I did find myself sitting on the toilet bowl, with both my legs trembling and quivering like crazy while I was trying hard not to vomit.  I finally forced my way back to the living room, and I leaned against the cabinet, debating with myself whether to wake my mom up or not.  Coincidentally, my dad saved me from making the decision by coming out of his room, and subsequently got the shock of his life to find me standing there in the dark, trembling.

I kinda collapsed right there as he switched on the lights, simply because my legs wouldn’t support me anymore.  He quickly moved me to the couch, and woke my mom up.  After a while, I started vomiting.  I think that worried the hell out of my dad, so much so that he called the ambulance to get me to the hospital.

Once I was there, the emergency staff gave me a jab to combat the giddiness, and sent me over to the waiting area to wait for a junior MO to see me.  I waited for a good 2 hours, and I was still feeling very giddy at that point.  So the junior MO saw me, made me explained what happened, went through all the “stroke tests”, took two big syringes of my blood and then sent me out to wait for another 2 hours.  So after 4 hours, she called me in again, and I was still giddy.  So she said she would ward me… and after yet ANOTHER 2 hours, the nurse finally called me over for warding registration.  Geeeez.

And guess what?  Right after the paperwork is done…. my BPPV somewhat recovered.  Great.  Thanks.  /s

One hour after the paperwork was done, another MO came over to me and made me go through all the “stroke” tests again.  Aaaaaand, he took another one (or two?) syringes of blood from me AGAIN.  I had puked my dinner out, didn’t even had my breakfast yet, and I was having my period, and I got so much blood taken away from me.  Geez.  I told this MO that I did not feel giddy anymore, but he said I’d still have to stay in the hospital for at least a day, for observation.

Resigned, I just slumped on the chair.  Yes, chair.  Even though I was officially “warded”, the hospital had ZERO bed vacancy and even the “waiting room” was full, and I was asked to wait at the “Transit Place” (aka holding area) where there’s no beds – just armchairs.  Oh, how helpful.  After dozing on and off for about two hours, a senior MO finally came over to assess my condition.  After I repeated my experience to her and telling her that I was okay now, she said that its just classic symptoms of BPPV and if I’m feeling all right, she sees no point in making me wait for a bed till god-knows-when.  I’M SO GLAD.  She made the MO write down notes to make sure the nurses didn’t send me up in case a bed is free, and she told me to stay in the holding area till lunch, and after I had lunch, she will discharge me if there’s no discomfort.

So yup, I was hospitalised, warded, and discharged – all on the same day.

The MO gave me medical leave for the entire week…. which of course, I took.  I still worked from home nonetheless, but being at home also gives me time and freedom alternating between work and games and radio-ing Dota2 matches, lol.

One week after the ordeal, my thighs were suddenly aching so badly.  Maybe its the post trauma kicking in to the muscles… I don’t know.  Perhaps my body is just retarded, somehow…. let’s hope it’s just muscle strain or anemia, nothing serious!

So uh. Yeah. Fell sick on Saturday after I went to Queensway Shopping Centre to buy a new pair of outdoor shoes for my upcoming Japan trip. Talking about the shoes, I’m kinda regretting that I didn’t go with my gut to get Salomon.  Instead, I was being persuaded to buy The North Face, which was um, well, not enough cushioning for my feet.  We’ll see how it goes though.  I might get insoles or heel cushions if it feels bad after a couple of months.

Anyway, I was having a bout of running nose, while Bruno wasn’t feeling too well either.  So we kinda just get our arses home by early evening.  And my body succumbed to the virus. -_-  Nose just kept running non stop, and I had to pop Fedac at night and a couple of Neuflo pills as I felt sorethroat coming up as well.  Spent the entire Sunday sleeping too.  Woke up at 11am, then got out of bed to eat, then climbed back to bed to snooze again till 3pm.  All that – with a headache.  Meh I was just literally sleeping my long weekend away.  Felt better on Monday, so just sat in front of the PC and WoW for the entire day… while having a super bad migraine that felt like something was tearing apart the insides of my head.  And I actually went down to Percolate to buy another cup of coffee at 6.30pm…

… which was a bad move.  I couldn’t sleep – at all – last night.  At 1.30am, my eyes were still wide open.  Whenever I tried to close my eyes, things just flashed in front of my eyes – random things.  Odd shapes and sizes, random 1-second scenes from my memories – everything just came in a rush until I opened my eyes again. And needless to say, I was in a panic state of mind. I think.

Left my boss a Whatsapp message telling her about my insomnia, and that if she didn’t see me in office in the morning, it means I’ll be taking an urgent morning leave from work.  Felt a bit better after sending that message, but still uneasy that I still couldn’t sleep at 2am.  Messaged Bruno a bit, but the lad was playing Dota 2 with his friends, so I didn’t really wanna disturb him much.  He was kind enough to drop me a bit of advice here and there when I was kinda at a lost. not knowing what to do and feeling rather helpless. (I really hate not being able to sleep when I know I’ve got to get up for work a few hours later.) Finally settled with watching a Dota 2 match – F5 vs FTMR (For The Mother Russia) – and managed to finish watching the whole game 2, while yawning umpteen times.  I thought I’d be ready to sleep, but nope, the moment I put down my phone and close my eyes – the flashes came again. So, oh well, I continued watching the stream again… and I think I actually dozed off a little (YAY!) at the start of the third game at around 3.15am. But hurhur, woke up 30 minutes later with eyes wide open.  Zzzzzz…. but I could feel the tiredness creeping in, so I tried to sleep… and yup, I think I managed to sleep at 4am.  Woke up at 6am due to alarm, and I just kept snoozing the alarm until 6.30am before I totally shut it off.  Went back to sleep again, and finally woke up at 7am.  I sat up on bed, wondering if I should just continue sleeping, then decided that I should be awake enough for work, so here I am, typing this blog entry in office. Not too sure how long I can survive the rest of the day till I hit the bed… but we’ll see.