Sleeping: Brace or no Brace?

Bike Time: 10 minutes barely
Distance:  I was going too slow for the bike to turn on to measure

I wish I were napping right now. It is 4:25 in the afternoon. The Boy should be home from a friend's house at 5:00, and Clare Adele should be home from track practice around the same time. I don't see the "value add" of napping right now. As soon as I'd nod off, I'd have to wake up, and what is the point of that? Or, I might fall asleep and not wake until 8:00 p.m..  I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep later tonight, and that would be bad.

I love to sleep. It is one of my favorite pastimes. When I was a kid, I would volunteer to go to sleep at night when I got tired. My parents must have been spoiled to have a kid who would go to bed without a fuss, who would want to go to bed.

I still love to sleep. Part of the reason I love to sleep is because I have a low tolerance for caffeine, especially in coffee. I turn into a squirrel when I drink non-decaf. Most people think I am exaggerating when I say I can't drink coffee because I get too hyper. I went to brunch with a friend and ordered a regular mocha. Normally, I am a fast talker. On caffeine, I am a rabbit. My friend said she would never let me drink regular coffee again. My favorite story though I went I drank coffee when I had the flu. I went to the coffee shop around the corner from my house and ordered a split shot mocha. I came home and was doing the laundry and dancing in the kitchen while I did the dishes. This is the best flu I've ever had. I feel great! And then the caffeine wore off about six hours later and I crashed. Hard.

Sleep post-surgery has been a challenge. I've been so tired at times I crash into sleep and nothing can wake me. Other times, every little twinge in my knee would wake me up. I discovered recently that I rotate in my sleep, starting on life left side, flipping to my back, then the right side, then my belly then starting all over again. Normally, this does not cause a problem, especially since I never noticed or cared how I slept before. Now, how I sleep determines if I sleep.

I have been floating back and forth between sleeping with the brace and without the brace, and I've made some interesting discoveries.

1. In the first few days after the surgery, I thought the brace was giving me grief when I slept and I hated it. Looking back, the real problem was my knee being stiff, sore and tender versus the brace being the problem. It was easier to blame the brace than my post-op knee.
2. I would sleep with the cryo-cuff ice bag, and that wasn't much better. It would slip down and not pad my knee, or it would pad my knee too much in different positions, such as when I slept on my stomach.
3. Bending me knee hurts when I sleep. I'll bend it and I'll be fine, and then a bit later it will get stiff, start to ache, then wake me up.
4. The brace is fine for my injured leg, but it scratches and bugs my non-injured leg. 

One night I slept with the ice cuff and without the brace. The next morning, the ice cuff was warm, and my usually swollen knee looked so beautifully tiny. The downside was I was up very two hours every time I shift in my sleep and my knee and the brace had to remind a comfortable place. A few nights ago, I decided to sleep without the ice cuff and without the brace. My right (non-injured leg) liked spooning and cuddling with my injured leg instead of feeling the brace's hard plastic and scratchy velcro tabs. Again, I was up every few hours when my knee would get achy from being bent. Last night, I tried again going to bed with the ice cuff, but switched to the brace in the middle of the night.

There probably is no right way for me to sleep until I settle into a better recovery period from the surgery. In the meantime it is trial and error, and giving in to the will to nap.