@Georgie I had less difficulty sleeping during the steroids than I'd anticipated, but I did have trouble sleeping between diagnosis (2 May) and my treatment plan / chemo consent meeting (19 June) -- which I entirely chalk up to anxiety.
I was particularly aware of every ache and twinge, things that in the past I would have explained away as tendonitis, my liver cysts grumbling, ovulation, etc., and in actual fact, they were still those things. The anxiety of the diagnosis got to me, as it does to quite a few people, I suspect. What especially worried me was a burning sensation across the skin of my chest and back and left shoulder. It would come and go, sometimes as I was having difficulty getting to sleep, but one time it came at the breast clinic, while I was waiting for an US of my lymph nodes and biopsy of any that looked irregular. During the biopsy, the nurse demonstrated that I wasn't burning up by placing her much warmer hands on the area. Afterward, I discovered that this burning sensation was an anxiety response -- a vicious feedback cycle, where my anxiety was causing my body to overstimulate the nerves, causing the sensation, which made me anxious, which cause the sensation.
I found my sleep started to get better after I understood this anxiety response and then talked a few times with a counsellor at the local cancer support centre.
OH reports I'm now snoring like a kitten again. Only thing that disrupts my sleep are the trips to the loo (drinking 3+ litres of water a day does that) and the occasional bone pain I get during the days I'm having the filgrastim injection, which helps to boost my neutrophils.
