(no subject)

May 04, 2004 19:43



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Very long, because I wanted to write about everything for friends who've had questions about my going to the sleep lab last night. Probably the longest entry I've ever made. I also didn't check for grammatical mistakes, so sue me. :0)



Last night I went in for a sleep study
(Polysomnogram)
at 9pm, & they woke me up at 6am this morning to let me go. I wasn't nervous at all. More curious than anything, as well as excited because whatever is wrong with me has been affecting my life in a *monstrous* way and I just need answers. All week long I was asked "Aren't you nervous/scared?" & "There's no way you're going to be able to sleep there." Getting a shot in my tush, makes me nervous. Laying on wires & electrodes doesn't.

The rules were - No caffeine for 12 hours beforehand. (I savored the largest cup of Vanilla Cappuccino I could find before the deadline). No makeup, no nail polish, no *lotion*, no conditioner or anything else in my hair. No lotion was hard, but I lived. ;) Any of those things could keep the connections from connecting to your body or head. Thankfully they let me put on some lotion (I brought Jasmine because it helps me sleep) & lip balm after wiring me up. I stopped itching like a maniac banshee then. ;)

'Wiring' me up (20 various connections) took about 45 minutes. As is my usual way, I plied the technician with questions. I wanted to know how all the equipment worked, what the craziest thing she'd seen was, what she could and couldn't tell me when I woke up the next day, how she got into this, what exactly she does while we're sleeping, Etc. She mentioned females can usually tell when they are having apnea problems, whereas males are often unaware until a female points out that he stops breathing while sleeping. Females are also more apt to see a Dr. on their own when apnea becomes a large issue, whereas males are often forced into the Dr's office by the female. What else is new? ;)

Most of the electrodes were connected to my head (good god, everywhere), two were connected to my calves, two for my stomach & chest to measure my breathing & something to measure my blood oxygen level was connected to one of my fingers. For the connections throughout your hair, they use a sticky, gel-like glue that as of this moment I still can't get out completely. Feels like giant wads of annoying bubble gum.

I was told to wear 2 piece pajamas (nothing silk or sexy they said..heh), and my only 2-piece pj's have little penguins on them. Okay, that's a No. So I wore little star covered pajama bottoms and a Winnie the Pooh T-shirt. Ya, I know. :0) At 11pm, my tech had me get into bed & attached all my wires to the equipment next to the bed. She mentioned she wouldn't come back unless I lost a leg electrode, or my blood oxygen levels dropped so low that it would become an emergency. If I lost a head electrode, she would just switch the data to another electrode through her equipment in the monitoring room. If I lost a leg electrode, she would need to come in to reattach. In the case of my blood oxygen level, she would wake me to put one of those crazy breathing machines on my face. That's really the only thing that bothers me about all of this, I've seen more than I've wanted to see of them on many a webpage.

Once in bed, the tech went to her monitoring room elsewhere. We could talk to one another through a speaker system and she had me do several things so that she could see what it looked like on her equipment -- Close my eyes and lay still. Three hard, deep breaths through my mouth only. Three hard, deep breaths through my nose only. Look straight ahead and then down 3 times each quickly. Look from left the right three times each quickly. Move my left leg. Move my right leg. Clamp my teeth together & hold for 10 seconds, etc..etc.

I brought one of my own soft down pillows & a book about a very long story behind one of Van Gogh's paintings. There was a camera pointed at me, as well as an infrared light on the headboard so that the tech could see me after I turned the light out. Minutes after Van Gogh killed himself, I realized I had to pee again. I knew it! She raced in to unhook me from the equipment and I got to drag all my electrodes to the bathroom with me. I knew I could see how silly I looked in the bathroom mirror, too. Strangely enough, of all the weird, eery photos I'd seen of people wired up, I just looked normal with a ton of wires. ;) There were 4 other patients there last night, but they were all in their rooms.

Back in bed again, I decided to play with the machine laying next to me. Moving body parts didn't change the numbers, while really focusing my thoughts changed them. I couldn't turn around with all the wires to get a great look at the machine, rather I had to force my eyes hard left to see it. After about 3 minutes, I remembered she'd just finished testing to see what it looks like when I force my eyes to left & stopped because I probably looked like a moron. ;)

I had to laugh and I turned out my light. Now the wires were bothering me. I sleep on my side and stomach, but the wires didn't let me do that. Wires behind my ears had to be placed on the bone, and I flopped around for a bit from that. The wires to check my breathing under my nose were causing my airflow to become obstructed. Things around my nose and eyes always bother me. I flopped around until I literally yawned about 35 times and worried for the first time that I wouldn't sleep anytime soon afterall.

At some point after I fell asleep, I woke up again and coughed. Boom!! Within 5 seconds the door opened & she came into my room. "Ohhh no..that machine thing on my face" I thought. She whispered instead that I'd lost one of my leg wires, and hooked it up again. I asked her what time it was (I thought it had been mere minutes), and she whispered that it was just after 4am. "Go back to sleep, okay?" she whispered & left the room again. I thought "Aww..she's whispering so I won't wake up" ;) But now, I couldn't go back to sleep again and they had to get a full 6 hours of data for this to work. This made me flop around even more. I stared into the camera in the dark and realized she was probably staring back at me, hoping that I would go back to sleep, so I flopped around for a bit longer.

When she woke me up again, I thought I lost another wire or she was back with the dreaded machine, but it was 6am and time to wake up. Apparently, when I woke at 4am and coughed I yanked my leg wire off right then. She ran in immediately because she needed to fix it before I had a chance to go back to sleep. She couldn't tell me anymore about that particular moment, or whether I had stopped breathing at all during the night. "I'm sooo sorry, I know you want to know..but I have to let the doctor do that." I'd already tried to talk her into telling me the night before, too. ;) She had to rip the tape off for each of the electrodes and left two near my eyes on and asked me to do it. "Better that you do those two, rather than me." OW. Before I left, I had to fill out more paperwork - including a page about whether I felt I woke up in the night, how long did it take me to go to sleep, etc.

I felt good sleep-wise for awhile. Better than I usually do, but it didn't last long & it showed up in my sense of direction & time. I got lost on the way home (somehow I ended up on some FM (farm-to-market road) something or other with a bunch of cows and rolling hills and a sign that said I was on my way to Manor, Texas. I turned around, and this time passed a sign that said I was on my way to Lampassas, Tx. Great. I finally figured out what direction to go when I saw the Austin downtown skyline far away over the hills. The really sad thing, is that I didn't start out but a few minutes away from that very skyline when I left the lab. ;) This should give you some idea of how I felt. I brought some peach sparkling water and some breakfast goodies with me in the car because I knew I would be hungry as soon as I woke up. Ate everything while enjoying rolling hills and cows, but needing desperately to go back to sleep again. I left the sleep lab at 6:55am, I made it home by 8:40am. I fell asleep immediately because I was so tired. Work knew I probably wouldn't come in until very late (had to go home for a shower and would probably want to sleep for an hour if the lab woke me up too many times) but now, despite two alarm clocks I didn't wake up until 2pm. Both of them were blaring, but I was so out of it that I slept through them.

I really didn't enjoy having to tell work I wouldn't be in for the rest of the day. I told them that I didn't feel well. The truth was that I was so tired I could barely stand straight. Mention you're tired and people try equate that to how *they* feel when tired, and then it sounds ridiculous because they just don't get how out of it I am from whatever is going on. I had just finished sleeping from 11pm to 6am, and that should have been enough, but it's not for me with whatever else is going on during my sleep. I was ready to go back to sleep again just 4 hours later at 6pm. It's 7:41pm now, and I'm struggling to stay awake. If I do go to sleep, it affects what happens to me tonight. A 2nd shower will probably wake me up, and it might just help me get these wads of glue out of my hair. I'm thinking a movie, too. I padded out to the mailbox in my pajamas and found that two more came in from Netflix. If I do anything strenous around the house, that tires me out to the point that I can't do anything but sleep.

The technician said that I will probably hear from her before I do the Doctor. Most likely a week. If they didn't find anything, then it's back to the doctor for me. More waiting...but I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders when I got home this morning. :0)
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