Bad Times

We have, unfortunately, had two very bad nights and one very bad day followed by not such a bad day today. Pete has been in absolute agony and unable to express himself apart from moaning and holding his head in his hands in despair. This has been so upsetting and very very hard to bear. The first night we had about half an hours sleep - I was up and dressed at 4.30am and Pete got dressed about half an hour later. I rang the doctors surgery, having made arrangements for his brother to take him to the surgery, but no appointments for 2 weeks (!!!??) apart from emergencies which would be decided by a doctor. So had to wait for a doctor to ring and then explain it all to her (but first I had to wait for her to get all his notes up to ascertain that I was telling the truth when I said he couldn't speak), she decided to write a prescription for me to collect, which I duly did. We started the treatment straight away but there was no relief for Pete until late this afternoon when it all kicked in. Consequently we were both up again at 5am this morning. Hopefully he is now on the road to recovery.
The first night we didn't sleep Pete had taken a sleeping tablet which didn't work at all. He is allowed to take 4 a week which he usually does on consecutive nights. The first one always works a treat and knocks him out quite quickly (within the hour), the second seems to take longer to work (about 2 hours), the third doesn't work that well and the fourth is a waste of time! How anyone can get addicted to something that doesn't always work is a mystery to me! I have suggested he only do two days at a time, but that suggestion was not received very well!!! It seems the logical thing to me, but I can't seem to reason with him as he can't tell me his views.
Pete used the FES all day yesterday, well, he had it on but as he didn't move around much it didn't get much action. He has not used it today, nor had his ankle brace on, but has got around ok, again though he has not moved around too much.
Pete has managed to get some sleep intermittently during the day, but I haven't, so I am seriously hoping he will sleep better tonight. I have been feeling well and truly beaten by life, and didn't know how we can go on like this. But as he is now in nowhere near the level of pain that he was I am feeling a bit better - but still really down about the aphasia. We have tried a couple of different approaches, to no avail. No speech therapy this week, but Bev did ring today and will be here next Wednesday.
One wish for tonight - PLEASE let Pete sleep so that I can as well!