trouble sleeping

I've been having trouble sleeping through the night. SOmetimes the gas is part of the problem, but sometimes I'm just awake.... not even stressed, just awake. The other night I woke up at 4am and lay in bed planning an elaborate breakfast. Then I finally got back to sleep, and of course was way too sleepy in the morning to make any of the great food I'd planned!

The fitness oncologist said it's a menopause symptom. I didn't even ASK her about it and she told me -- I thought, what, am I wearing a sign? She said it's common. I am guessing that it's going to be more pronounced for people with chemo induced menopause, because the hormone levels drop for us abruptly, and we need to encourage that.

ANyway the solution for me has been more exercise, and no days off. I used to take a couple of days off a week, but now I find that when I do that I have too much trouble sleeping the night after and then I'm wiped out the next day -- and what kind of day off is THAT ?!

Also I wonder if the steroid I get before the taxol does something that makes it hard for me to sleep. I have no experience with steroids, but maybe that could happen....??? I jsut think that it should be possible for me to bike only 12 miles in a day (to and from chemo) and sleep at night -- but I couldn't get to sleep last night until 4am. Then I got up early to bike. I could have slept in instead, but then I would have had a worse time sleeping tonight, right?

I thought of it because I was remembering how when I was on Adriamycin & Cytoxan, which made me feel queasy, I slept great -- for a whole weekend with no workouts! Who knew I would miss the stuff.....