Two Weeks Post Oophorectomy

"Its as if you woke up!"

This is what my husband says about me now, ever since the surgery.

I've got this lack of sleep thing happening still.  It's technically 17 days post-op, but close enough, and I can't sleep.  Really, its awful.  If I weren't to take any supplements or meds, I'd probably stay wide awake till midnight or 1am!  With Unisom or Xanax, I can sleep off and on through the night, waking only 3-4 times to hot flashes.  But because my doctor doesn't think either of those are good options long term, she had two mixtures made for me.  I picked them up two days ago, so I've only had two nights taking them.  You can see the labels below to get an idea of the strength and what's in them.

For the melatonin, I'm taking 10 drops under the tongue for two weeks, I'll then go down to 5 drops for as long as I need.  Melatonin is completely safe, so she feels this is the best option.  However, she did warn me of one thing...vivid dreaming for the first few nights.  Well, lets break down night one and night two thus far.

Night 1:
I took the pills right after dinner, and the melatonin 30 minutes to bed time (I was shooting for a 9:00 bedtime because I'm really so very tired.)  It took me a while to fall asleep, and once I did, I was up again about 20 minutes later.  This persisted ALL NIGHT LONG.  I think I watched the clock go through every hour.  And because I wasn't sleeping, I was feeling every single hot flash.  My arms are getting stronger from tossing the covers off and pulling them on all night.  Needless to say, the next morning I felt like I was hit by a truck, suffering from overall exhaustion.

Night 2:
I took the pills after dinner, and the melatonin 30 minutes to bed time.  I was up off and on from 9-1am.  But come 1am, I was able to sleep pretty soundly, only waking maybe 4 times to hot flashes, till 6am.  The strangest part was how vivid my dreams were.  Wow!  I woke up and told my husband everything.  I feel so-so today as I'm still very tired and not getting my normal amount of sleep.  The lack of sleep is also causing me to be pretty weepy.  Tears right behind my eyeballs at all times.  I'm supposed to give it two more nights for my brain to figure out this melatonin thing and learn how to sleep again, and the dreams should calm down and I should begin sleeping better and better.

Some may wonder why this is such a big deal, this sleep thing.  My doctor is concerned not only for my overall health and sanity, but because this is nothing like pre-surgery, when I was a sleeper.  I'm a natural born sleeper.  Doctors have tested me all my life for anemia because I sleep so much.  Whether as a little kid, in high school, in college or later...I sleep.  I can sleep for 9-10 hours at night, and still take an hour nap during the day.  I love sleep.  I really, really miss sleep.  What's happening now is not me.  However, my husband loves it as he finally has a partner with which to watch movies and late night TV.

Other than the sleep, everything is pretty ok.  My scars have healed beautifully, my stitches have fallen out, my tenderness is getting much better and my overall health is great.  I'm now on constant monitoring though, with more frequent check ups to make sure my heart stays healthy (higher risk for heart problems), my cholesterol sorts itself out and my bones remain as strong as possible.