Sucky sleepy time

I met with Dr. D this morning for my weekly sleep chat, and we talked about my progress, or lack thereof.  We've been extending the amount of time I can be in bed each night and am finally at a length of time similar to when I would normally go to bed before we started all this sleep doc business.  And I feel just as tired and think I'm getting the same quality (read: low) of sleep that I got before.  Things feel no different.

Dr. D finally told me today, "I'm not sure what else we can do."  Awesome.  I'm meeting with him again in 4 weeks, after I get back from Dallas (upcoming work trip).  In the meantime, I don't have to log my sleep each morning like I do now, but I should try and stay on a sleep schedule, adjusting the amount of time I can stay in bed each night as necessary.  He also thinks that since my sleep has been poor for so long (i.e. years, a decade or so) that I can't expect it to improve overnight (pun intended).  Perhaps I need to be more patient and lower my expectations of the process a bit.

He thinks that there are other things in my life that are likely impacting my sleep, like stress from work and my tumor and the love life issues I'm struggling with.  I'm sure he's right but am not sure what can be changed about these things.  He also told me that if a guy rejects me because of my tumor, he's a very shallow man and not someone worth wasting my time on.  Dr. D is in the majority of people I've talked to that thinks I won't be rejected because of my tumor.  I hope everyone is right...!

I'm continuing to feel totally disoriented about time when I wake up in the middle of the night (which I think I've mentioned before and is a new development since surgery).  Like last night, I woke up, saw it was 2:45am on the clock, and I could NOT comprehend if that meant I could go back to sleep or if I needed to get up and shower.  I saw it was really dark out, but that didn't help, as my brain couldn't figure out what that meant either.  It's very confusing and bizarre, and last night it probably took 30 seconds before I realized that I could go back to sleep and that my alarm would wake me up in a few hours and I hadn't slept through work.  It's so weird.

I am feeling pretty exhausted tonight and am hopeful that it means I'll be able to konk out pretty quickly once I get in bed.  Fingers crossed! (Zzzzz....)