Oh What A Night

It was another one of those, fortunately not too regular, nights of erratic and painful discomfort. As I needed to be up and about this morning, at a much earlier hour than usual, I decided to take a shower before retiring au lit. One (at least this one) would expect a late evening shower to prove an aid to relaxation and rest but, that wasn’t to be the case.

Firstly, my shoulders didn’t seem able to find a comfortable position whichever way I sought to settle down for some much needed slumber. Next the calf muscles kept tortuously spasming and, in next to no time a painfully aching lead laden hollow sensation in my left wrist and forearm colluded in the protest movement. Having applied my wrist support, to alleviate the agonizing discomfort, I felt ready once more to enter the land of nod but a rebellious body refused to comply with its own needs.  That’s the point when the expletives came into play as I got myself out of bed and paced around the bedroom and landing.

 On returning to bed my ribs and flesh felt  as if they were disconcertingly trapped in a non-elastic skin whilst, simultaneously, an adequately loose fitting pyjama jacket suddenly felt unduly constrictive.  PJ’s duly removed, I felt that settling down for the night would now follow just as naturally as day follows night; wrong again! Wilfully directed arms and legs flailed, this way and that, as comfort became a completely elusive goal. By 3.45am, still uncomfortably restless, I decided to take a couple of tramadol 50mg capsules and, within half an hour I began to feel much more relaxed and eventually managed to snatch an hour or two of slumber. 

 I suppose that, at the back of my mind, the prospect of having to emerge at 7.00am to insert a couple of suppositories, in preparation for a 9.10am appointment for a sigmoidoscopy at the District Hospital, wasn’t totally conducive to getting a good night’s sleep. On normal days, the period between 7.00 and 10.00am frequently proves conducive to some most refreshing rest; it’s almost as if an awareness of missing out (on this familiar luxury) had militated, somewhat perversely, against my taking advantage of more usual hours of nocturnal rest.

This morning, I was actually admitted to the consulting room a few minutes early and, much to my relief the sigmoidoscopy revealed no abnormalities but, an appointment has been made for me to undergo a full colonoscopy in one month’s time.