Gratitude

Today is Tuesday, June 27, 2023 and unfortunately I didn’t sleep well at all last night. From the beginning of my stay in the hospital my sleep was completely thrown off. It was a lot of factors but mainly the high cortisone dosage I was on kept me awake and alert all night long. After day 3 in the hospital, I asked the doctors for something to help me sleep at night. They prescribed Trypitzol…but after 6 nights on it I remembered that I was on this medication for 4 months, form November to March, and I didn’t like its side effects at all. So then they put me on Piriton for 10 days…but I needed something stronger. I wasn’t getting enough restful sleeps. They ended up putting me on Ativan which I’ve been on since June 1 and honestly it has been helping me, to a certain degree. With the recent tapering down of my cortisone medication, Ativan has actually been working better and I’ve been getting the rest my body needs. I decided not to take it last night, under the advise of my doctor, to see if I still need it or not. I was only able to get 3 hours of sleep so clearly I still need to be on it. The reason I decided not to take it was because I don’t want to develop any dependency on these kinds of medications and my doctor suggested I try not taking it during one of the Eid holiday nights since I don’t have appointments that I need to be active and fully-functioning for the next day. Well, I don’t have any doctor’s appointments tomorrow but it is the first day of Eid and I want to be well rested to enjoy the day so I’ll definitely be taking it tonight!

Today I had my weekly zoom therapy session and as always, it was extremely beneficial. We talked about a range of topics and one of them was gratitude. Gratitude means being thankful, but it’s more than that. Gratitude means expressing thankfulness and being appreciative of everything in your life, from the smallest to the biggest things. I’ve been grateful for a lot of things in my life, pre-illness, and as hard as it may sound, during my illness and now throughout my treatment. I’ve mentioned before that my physical therapist during my hospital stay was truly amazing. As a PT she was great and she was always able to comfort me during the tough days. She had arranged for a special ‘field trip’ for me on May 31 and it was a much needed breather, literally. She surprised me by arranging for our PT session to take place on the helipad! How cool is that?! At that point I hadn’t stepped out of the hospital building for 19 days so I needed to get some fresh air. I remember being so happy, and appreciative, and thankful to her and to be able to feel the morning breeze on my face and the sun against me (though extremely briefly so I don’t flare up)…it was such a beautiful feeling. I couldn’t stop thanking her for making it happen. I’m so grateful to have experienced those moments when I did and I still look back at that unforgettable adventure and feel happiness within. Gratitude is so important in our lives. What are you grateful for? My list is a long one and I hope yours is too…

.عيدكم مبارك و تقبل الله منا ومنكم صالح الأعمال وكل عام وأنتم بخير

اللهم أدخل السكينة في قلوبنا, والمحبة في نفوسنا, والابتسامة في وجوهنا, والسعادة في بيوتنا, واجعل ذكرك لايفارقنا يا حي يا قيوم.