My doctors note expires on Tuesday and I have had to accept that I need more time. My sleep what-the-fuckery is still what-the-fuckerying. There's no consistency. Some days I'll get two or three hours of fractious, not restful sleep or I'm wiped out completely for a whole day. It has often meant I've been awake when most people are asleep. Starting my day at night time. It's isolating and feels a bit surreal after a while.
I've been occupying those times with lots of tea and murder programmes.
So much ends up out of whack when painsomnia is dominating things. Chronic fatigue becomes even more of a drag, brain fog is more frequent and it really affects my mood. I'll feel grouchy and low more often than not. Sleep is just a mockery.
When I'm not getting restful sleep, it also flares my tinnitus. Most of the time, it's just a manageable background crickets disturbance, but when it has been at its worst recently, it's felt like an awful metallic screaming. It's so demoralising when you're mentally and physically tired and just want to sleep but can't because you can't escape your own head.
Since I've had the time and space with being signed off, I've just been letting myself sleep whenever the opportunity has presented itself, whether it's a nap on the sofa with the cats or an extended nap in bed.
Meanwhile, I've been waiting to speak to a gynaecologist. Unfortunately, the consultant that treated me between 2016-2018 is now only seeing patients she has treated within the last 12 months. It's disappointing because I really liked her but I've at least had an initial conversation with a new consultant. I had an appointment at the hospital booked in for tomorrow but she called me on Friday afternoon and we had a discussion over the phone instead. It made sense to do it this way I think, because she wants to send me for a scan first and we can have a face to face consultation after that.
So at least the ball is rolling on that front.
I will get in touch with my boss tomorrow in advance of my doctors note expiring to give her an update on where I'm at. When the doctor initially signed me off they said to contact them again if I needed more time so it won't be a problem getting a new note. I'm only going to ask for a further week, as it would mean returning on a short week and the following week would be short too due to the May bank holiday. I'm hoping that by then I'll have got a bit more control over my sleeping.
So yeah, I'm still a bit all over the place and I still battle with brain weasels and associated guilt about not being at work and generally feeling like a burden but at least I've had initial contact with the consultant and although I had hoped to be on top of things enough to go back to work, at least I've had that conversation with myself and admitted I'm not ready instead of dithering about it and reaching the same conclusion anyway.