I am a person who always was able to sleep and would generally be out before my head ever hit the pillow. Now I found myself tossing and turning for hours at a time.
PUBLISHED January 22, 2019
Jane has earned three advanced degrees and had several fulfilling careers as a librarian, rehabilitation counselor and college teacher. Presently she does freelance writing. Her articles include the subjects of hearing loss and deafness, service dogs and struggling with cancer. She has been a cancer survivor since 2010.
She has myelodysplastic syndrome, which is rare, and would love to communicate with others who have MDS.
I am a person who always was able to sleep and would generally be out before my head ever hit the pillow. Now I found myself tossing and turning for hours at a time. I would try reading, but then would just delay my sleep longer. Ironically, the cancer and chemo were making me even more tired, and I needed the sleep more than ever so my body could heal. What was happening to me?She has myelodysplastic syndrome, which is rare, and would love to communicate with others who have MDS.
I soon figured out I had insomnia. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) defines insomnia as, “the experience of having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep during the night.”
ASCO goes on to say that most people experience insomnia at some time in their lives, but the risk increases with cancer. This has been a long hard road for me since I was diagnosed eight years ago. Many cancer survivors – myself included – know that when we lay in bed unable to sleep, we begin to worry about the cancer, treatments and what the future holds for us. I got less than two hours of sleep from insomnia before my last bone marrow biopsy and my adrenaline was so high that the usual sedatives I was on did not work to put me in a twilight zone. That was not fun!
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