Apnea report

Long story short.

I've been mostly dead all night.

Severe sleep apnea 55.2 average events per hour, or 93.9 events per hour on my back.

Those are the results of the 2 sleep studies I had in December.

30 events is considered "severe" and increases chance of serious heart disease  by 50%

No wonder I'm so freaking tired.

I don't want anybody giving me shit about being lazy or needing  a nap ever again.

Dammit.

So we only have 2 days of data with the new machine but it appears to be a great improvement.

I am never to lay down without it, though.

Something about each time I sleep w/o it I'm training my brain into "central sleep apnea" which is an instability of the body's feedback mechanisms that control respiration.  So yeah, I'm too stupid to know when to breathe and if I don't have the mask on telling me when to breathe . . . it'm going to get stupider and deader.

Anyway, last night's sleep wasn't as good as before, but it's much better than it had been. No changes were prescribed and Dr. will see me again in 3 months. He said I only got 5 1/2 hours of good sleep the night before and I'm a little worried how great I'll feel if I actually end up getting 8 good hours of sleep on a nightly basis.

I'm sleepy.





Snowy Saturday

Smart me took my Paxil as soon as I got to the sleep clinic last night. And I'm glad I did because I really needed it.  Some things were a lot better than the first time, but some were a lot worse.

The tech that helped me did everything herself which was nice, because I really could barely tolerate 2 people touching me at the same time last time. Especially in a tiny little cold room with fans blowing on me from every direction. That's just the wire hookup though. After that, the worst part the first time, was the smell of glue.

The really bad part was that after the hookup, I had a really sick stomach. I was in the bathroom probably 3 times within an hour. I thought I might vomit, but I didn't. I'll spare you the details, because they are quite gross. So, anyway, dinner hadn't agreed with me but after an hour I was ok to lay down and get all my wires hooked into the monitors.

At first I had no complaints about the mask - which fit over nose and mouth, or the level of air pressure. The difficulty came when I would fall asleep and the position of my head would change. Then the mask would move and lose suction making huge wet farting sounds on my face. So not pleasant, oh yeah, and it was pressing down to hard on the bridge of my giant crooked nose (thanks IRL sister). We tried this for about 2 hours before they finally made some readjusments and let me sleep on my side at midnight. After that, I didn't wake up until my usual time, 5:45.  I do notice a bit of difference in my alertness now. But, I could still nap. Good idea, actually.

From here, the doctor looks at the study and writes a prescription for me to get my own machine. Then I will get lessons on how to take care of it and bring it home to be my new nightime cuddle buddy. Hobbes will not be pleased, but I hope he'll get used to it. I  need my fluffy bed companion. Which reminds me, Sweetie might be able to tolerate sleeping with me too now. I hate to lose my bed real estate. Hmmm.

that was a big day

Sleep study showed apnea. Duh. that's all they told me about it, except for that I have to go back a week from Friday and get another one with the CPAP machine to calibrate it.  The worst part was the hookup. The glue in the hair stinks and it's all itchy. Difficult to get out of my hair. But, if it helps me live I suppose it's worth it.  I hated HATED having hands all over me hooking me all up. Sleeping wasn't exactly cozy  but they did bring me an extra blanket cuz I was FREEEEEZING. It took me longer than usual to fall asleep, but I expected that.  So I go back Jan 14. Yi -pee.

Before Kiddo, when I worked at a j-o-b in the banking industry. Our best "couples" friend from that time has since moved to PA as minister, but we both agree that it was the best job EVAH when were in credit card. At any rate, we got together today for the first time in about 9 1/2 years. They had met Kiddo when she was less than a week old. So we went to IHOP today and got along as well as ever. Unfort, his kid that is only a few months older than ours, suddenly puked on the table as we were waiting for our orders. Her mom ran her "home" to grandparents and came back. The baby sister (toddler) ended up getting her big chocolate chip happy face pancake while mom was gone. We had great fun watching her dig in with both fists. Mom wasn't TOO mad when she returned and it helped the other kids forget about the barf incident.

After that I napped. Dang, I was tired!

I had purchased tickets to the Globetrotters for Sweetie's bday and today was the game. His first time. I was a bit disappointed compared to the other 2 games we had been to at a nearby university but this one was in a hockey stadium and didn't have as good seating. Sweetie was entertained and had a bday gift that wasn't clutter, so he was happy. Afterwards we went to get Kiddo's jersey signed. It is a #41 "Dunbar" jersey I bought for $5 at a garage sale last year.  As the players were signing it, they all said "Awesome! Sweet Lou! Look! Sweet Lou!" and things like that. So naturally I had to look him up on the net when we got home.

Here is a photo and some information about why is one of the most legendary players, and now personnel coach for the Globetrotters. He was even a character in the 1979 animated series. Anybody remember that? He was the one that pulled things out of his superhero afro. I remember that.  Too bad he wasn't on hand at today's game - he's pretty busy in Houston.   As a rummage sale whore, and a celebrity stalker, I am completely pumped about this purchase. This is my 3rd game but I certainly didn't know enough to claim it was the reason why I bought this XL adult size jersey for my 9 year old kid. lol  It looks great on her. We'll have to try to get Dunbar's sig on it along with the others!

Unfortunately, as we were leaving the stadium, she started puking.

Tonight's the night

The dreaded sleep study.

I'm not happy about it, but I'm not freaking out as much as I was.

One of my church friends reassured me that it's "just like sleeping in a hotel, especially if you're used to going to some kind of freaky hotel where they hook you up to machines and watch you sleep."