A Good Night Sleep!

It is strange to think how something so simple as a bed can make a huge difference and mean the difference between 3 or 4 nebulisers and just 1 nebuliser treatment.

Often, and this is something I say myself as a nurse to patients is that I bet they look forward to a getting back into their own bed when I/ they get discharged from hospital. You would think you would want your own bed and it would be the best thing. But for me it was not the lure of my own bed. The thought of freedom and having my own space etc is great but my own bed was not what I looked forward to. A bed in the hospital is a profiling bed which can sit you up bend your knees etc, compared with beds at home which are just flat and depending on how much support you want or how propped up you want to be you can have an assortment of pillows. So other than in hospital I have found it very difficult to sleep a full night. My assortment of 10 pillows made up from a collection of normal pillows, memory foam pillows, v pillow, long body pillow does not give me a peaceful night. I start off comfy and propped up but they loose their bounce and you just flatten them over time, also as you wriggle they move and you end up falling between the gaps or just fall off them, meaning I make up coughing and short of breath because I find it very difficult to lie flat and keep breathing!

So what can be done shy of sleeping either in a chair or in hospital?

Well I recently got measured and fitted up for a bespoke electric bed which accommodates my height, leg length etc. Wednesday night the guys came out and built the bed which was made to suit me in every way including the height that the bed is from the floor.

This bed is awesome. For the first time in as long as I can remember other than being in hospital I have had a decent night sleep. I was able to get rid of 9 pillows, sleeping on just one. I was able to bing my knees up and then the back of the bed up to a position where I was almost sitting but not quite. It was so comfy. The mattress felt like it was really supporting me, the massage function in the legs meant I could set it to go for 15 minutes to try and settle my restless legs and I was good to go for a good nights sleep. Waking only once due to wheezing and coughing.

It was bizarre having a good night sleep. When I woke to my alarm I felt a bit confused as I was still in a fairly deep sleep but also I hadn’t been up over night other than the one time. I think having a full night sleep made me more tired as I am sure I could have slept for a lot longer if I didnt have work to go into.

I am now kicking myself that I didnt do something like this years ago but part of it is accepting that this will be lifelong and its not going to magically get better over night so I am in for the long haul I may as well do things that will benefit me such as getting a new bed which can give me a good night sleep.

It is a very strange feeling because the excitement of getting a new bed is tinged with sadness as it is bowing down to the asthma and giving in. I feel just now I am doing more and more things to make accommodations because of it rather than just ploughing through and ploughing through is no longer an option. I just don’t have the energy to do it anymore. Even just a days work leaves me exhausted and its only 5 and a bit hours. The exhaustion is not just a go to bed early and sleep but you feel like lead, muscles ache, your head feels heavy so hopefully having a new bed that will give me a decent night sleep will help and impact me during the day giving me more energy!!