Things preventing a good night's sleep?

[learnteach]

My husband is severely disabled and has leg spasms and pain at night. We used to rent a 3 bdrm home, so I could go into another bedroom and sleep. Now we are in a two bdrm house and my son has the other bedroom.  Some nights he sleeps all night, but lately he wakes me up one to five times to straighten out his legs, or to bend or stretch them out (so they feel better). The new weekend night caregiver sometimes puts him in  bed too far down and his heels hit the footboard, sometimes he is put in crooked and one leg will fall off the side of the bed. If I don't get his leg back up he can slowly fall off onto the floor. He has bedrails, but she doesn't put them up sometimes. This happens because I go to bed early sometimes (after I sit in the livingroom and fall asleep a few times, everyone yells - go to bed!). He always stays up till 10 or 11.  Sometimes he has panic attacks and starts to sweat, then he wants me to take one of his blankets off of his bed and turn down the heat. Of course, he is cold the next morning and wants me to turn up the heater. When we have heating oil, the house stays comfortable. When we run out and use space heaters, the air is always cool and there are cold areas on the house. The next day, he falls asleep in his wheelchair and sleeps for several hours.

I have to hop out of bed everymorning between 5 and 6 am to let the morning caregiver in. I unlock the door, move the shower chair from the bathroom to the bedroom (so I can use the bathroom before he gets in there for the next 2 hours), start the coffee pot, turn on the heater in the bathroom (get it out of my son's room if it is in there), take my meds, shave my husband if he needs it, (every other day), and take my son to school by 7:20 am. That is why I sleep in my clothes. I change them at night, but I can't be running around half dressed when the caregiver gets there (most mornings it is a guy). Sometimes I get in bed at 9 pm at night. Then the dog jumps on the bed (3 yr old Black Lab) and then the cat (Squirt, small for 3 yrs - the gray one).  Sometimes my right shoulder hurts so much (old Army injury) I have to sleep on my back or on my left side. I get to sleep in the corner where all the single pane windows are which is okay when I have a hot flash, a little chilly the rest of the time. We have two hospital beds in the small room, he has the one that works and I have his old broken one (mattress is really high but no way to adjust it down).

I am not sure what I would have to do to have a decent night's sleep. I do sleep very well when I travel overnight out of town to a rat show (I am a judge and I help set up & take down). I am so used to jumping out of bed when the caregiver calls in the am, that an alarm clock doesn't bother me. A friend one time kept trying to set the alarm clock (shared room, 2 big double beds) and I never woke up. Someone called and I was instantly fully awake. She thought that was so strange.

 

[Cindy18]

Mar. 8, 2009 at 6:57 PM

I'm so sorry you can't get a good nights sleep.! Shouldn't the caregiver work around you not the other way around! Maybe you can talk to them about coming a little bit later so that you can sleep in jammies and get up in time to get dressed and if the night time caregiver doesn't put him in bed the right way that's something to complain about. Maybe he/she just needs an in-service training on how to put your husband in bed correctly! Good Luck, I really hope you can sleep soon!

P.S. What is a rat show? What do you judge? My daughter would love to go to something like that!!