My husband is sleeping a lot.

[Yoda8888]

Hi, It's been about 14 months since my husband had the cardiac arrest which led to hypoxia brain injury. He has just started walking around again, slowly but at least not falling over like before. Better control of his shakes which they call ataxia. Still have the shakes but not as bad as before. Able to stand and shower on his own. Going up the stairs at the moment is still a risk so definitely up and down the stairs is still out of the question at the moment. I have taken him out on the bus and still need to support him up the bus and down. He gets more unstable when he is trying to get down the bus. I know I need to take the wheelchair out and push it along just in case. He gets tired easily so I have to make sure he has something to sit on when he needs to. He's been in hospital, brain injury rehab and currently at a care home. The hard part is trying to get him to do things. He just want to sleep or watch tv all the time. He will promise that he will do the exercises and get out more when the staff offer to bring him and other residents out for social events but when the time comes he will say he doesn't want to. I always have to push him and then end up nagging at him and I feel bad to have to do this. He was ok awhile ago sleeping less but recently gone back to sleeping a lot. It's so frustrating. He will say that he wants to get better so that he can come home but because he is sleeping so much he ends up not doing too much. It's so hard to tell whether he needs to sleep so much because of the brain injury or he has got into a habit of sleeping too much so I need to push him to get up more but sometimes I feel like I am being cruel to push him too much. Sometimes I just feel like giving up and just let him be but then again I might be the only person who can try to motivate him or else he won't get better. The staff keeps saying they can't really force him to do things but I keep saying he's got a brain injury so he won't know what is good for him. agghh...so frustrated..

[Kirk5w7]

It's a bit of a vicous circle , I'm over 4 years on and can still sleep for England but I recognise what I need to do and manage to get 3 /4 periods of decent exercise a week, the days in between I rest a lot.

Personally, I have had to return to taking antidepressants, without these I was finding it difficult to find a reason to get up in the morning.

I hope that your husbands attitude will change, does he have plenty to occupy himself with other tgan the TV? Perhaps looking for a hobby, painting, jigsaws, marquetry something to tax and interest him but that can be picked up and put down easily.

Good luck Janet

[Loladaliasmythe]

Hi I am not sure but I think because he has been walking around a lot more he must be getting fatigue from it. My boyfriend will sleep for 24 hours even after something mentally tiering he has had a traumatic brain injury but I think any illness in which involves fatigue will work like this. Maybe spread out his activity more xxxx

[Loladaliasmythe]

Also it takes a lot of energy to heal. But he may lack motivation and have a bit of blues. But this then might be caused by fatigue don't push him let him sleep to catch up and tell him you'll start again in a couple of days but start really small and build it up xxxx

[Elenor3]

Is he taking any medication that's contributing to his sleepiness? Perhaps check this out if you haven't already ? Good luck with progress and recovery. It all takes time but it can feel very frustrating

[sca2013]

So sorry this has happened for both of you. My cardiac arrest and brain injury occurred in Dec 2013. So I have somewhat of a feel for what its like. Yes, it is highly frustrating not being able to quite figure out how much to do or not do. I'm not sure what the answers are even now, except I just take it one day at a time and do what I can each day to make life as good as I can. Some days just really suck. Above everything else please take care of yourself. As you have experienced, some things you just have no control over, which really can be frustrating. At least it is for me. I don't really know what else to say other than to say I wish you peace and comfort while you're going through this.