I'm in the middle of a sleep study here at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle. Last night after check-in, I was wired up, had a bunch of wires attached to my head with goo, and am currently waiting for my second "nap" of the day (they have you lie down and try to sleep every 2 hrs for 15-20 minutes. Then, just when you are about to drift off, they wake you up! It's vicious).
I'm not allowed any caffeine during the study, which means I am currently right at the beginning of a truly awesome headache. Also I can only lay down and close my eyes when they tell me to. Which is weird and annoying. But the nice things are - I have Internet access (obviously), a decent view of downtown, and an excuse to stay in my PJ's all day. And I have all of Season 5 of the Wire with me, since I can watch DVDs here on my nice big flat screen teevee. In a few hours, someone will bring me lunch. The food is eh, of course. It's weird how spoiled I've become in regards to food. Someone brings me a Yoplait yogurt and I am disappointed because I know there's way better stuff out there -stuff without 85 bajillion sweeteners. Anyway.
OK, time for my second "nap". I'm gonna be grumpy by the end of today! Man oh man.
3 comments:
Oh Jeannie, I HEAR ya. Paul went through that at Virgina Mason recently, and he was Mr. Grumpy Pants when I went to pick him up....
How come a sleep study? Apnea? Sleep walking? Hallucinations of fame and glory?
Z - Aa thinks I have sleep apnea (I don't know if I snore! I am asleep!). Also, I am tired all the damn time. I can sleep for 10, 11 hours and still feel tired. And my body wants that much sleep. If I had no obligations, I would easily sleep 10 hours a day. Basically the results of the awful, torturous day study was that I fall asleep really fast, which partially explains why I'm tired all the time. (I was too grouchy to ask for an explanation of that.) I'll find out more at my follow-up appt in a week or so.
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea way way back in 2002, and have been usin a CPAP (continuous positive air pressure) device ever since. It takes a couple weeks of getting used to feeling like you're being lightly suffocated, and then you're fine. If you've done SCUBA (which I haven't), apparently you'll have no trouble. A lot of people give up on the machines in the first few weeks, but the reward of using it is better sleep, more mental alertness, better health, and...you won't have a heart attack at 40. One of the big side effects of apnea is early terrible health, including heart attacks. A friend of mine was in the hospital several years ago in his early 30s recovering from a totally unexpected heart attack (no family history, few signs), and a cardiac nurse his wife knew blogged about apnea. He was tested immediately, found to have the most severe apnea they'd ever recorded, and was put in a BiPAP (a machine that helps you breathe in *and* out) that night.
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