What a Lousy Night of Sleep

My night through the night was quite lousy last night.  We went to bed at around 10pm but I was not sleepy just yet which, I assume, was due to all the steroids in my body at this point.  Sheila fell asleep quickly but I stayed up and read for a while.

I was still needing to get up to use the bathroom every hour too.  I think this was due to all the extra antihistamines I have been taking daily for the past week as well as because of all the extra water I had been drinking throughout the day.  These short bathroom trips were clearly cutting into my sleep too.

Then, at 2am, I had some minor difficulties breathing.  It resolved itself within about ten minutes but that was a sign that I clearly am still seesawing back toward anaphylaxis.  It is happening much less frequently now and the severity is much less now too but that seesawing is still occurring it seems.  

It is sort of like a swinging pendulum...   Early on, this pendulum was swing quickly and swinging high toward significant problems.  Then it would swing quickly the opposite direction toward stability.  With each consecutive swing, it swings more slowly and not quite as high where severe symptoms appear.

This breathing issue at around 2am was nothing urgent nor severe so I didn't use my inhaler nor epinephrine.  This just resolved itself, which is a good sign too.  I was just having difficulty getting a full deep satisfying breath of air for a relatively brief ten minutes.  I was ready to use my inhaler or epinephrine but the breathing did not get bad enough to need them.  It actually was a nice feeling to have my body resolve this on its own.

Sometime after that 2am little mini episode of minor difficulty breathing, I did happen to fall asleep.  I only slept for a half hour before being awoken by a bothersome violent nightmare. Then I had to urinate again...  I stayed awake for a about an hour...  then fell asleep again.

The sleep, once again, only lasted about a half hour before I was awakened by another nightmare.  I awoke and had to urinate again so I went back to the bathroom.  At this point I was falling asleep more quickly though so that was good even though I didn't want to go back to sleep for fear of jumping right back into the previous nightmare. 

I kept awaking myself every hour or two due to bothersome nightmares and needing to use the bathroom.  Eventually, the nightmares turned more toward dreams and I had to visit the bathroom a couple more times before finally getting up at 9am.  

When I awoke at 9am, I felt like my face was a bit swollen.  This, too, is a common Prednisone side effect so I wasn't (and still am not) all that concerned about it.  Now that I have been up and about for a half hour, my face no longer feels swollen so that is good.  Last night was my last dose of the Prednisone so, hopefully, the Prednisone symptoms (headaches and face swelling, so far) will taper off over the next few days as well. 

In the last nightmare/dream that I had, I was with Kerry, an old friend of mine who died of cancer a few years ago so there was a little bit of good to come out of these dreams and nightmares.  The dream wasn't all that pleasant but Kerry made me laugh as he always did when he was around.  It was a weird mix of nightmare and spending some time with Kerry while also even helping someone with some mechanical problem (leaking plumbing).  Eeek...  I hope that wasn't a premonition that I'm going to have some plumbing issue in the house!  Hmmm....  or was that about needing to urinate every hour?  I did urgently need to urinate again when I awoke from that dream at 9am...

Other than the facial swelling and being exhausted from a terrible night's sleep, I'm feeling pretty stable so that is a good sign.  We'll see what today brings...