Miscellaneous

Good early morning (it's midnight in my area!). Since I can stay up as late as I wish tonight, thought I'd post a little bit about our experience last night for those who have never had this sleep apnea test. DH had done the gig about 25 years ago when we lived in So. Fla, and really did not want to go through it again. However, our doctor felt he should, and explained to him, there are new methods of handling sleep apnea now. In case you didn't know this, the condition can be quite serious. Aside from just snoring, the person actually can stop breathing, and the brain is not getting oxygen. (maybe that's what is wrong with me! :-) Seriously, I probably do have it - but I was more concerned that DH get checked. A lot of night time heart attacks occur because of this - or so we're told - and the person doesn't wake.
We presented ourselves at the clinic about 8:45pm, me with my pillow and a nice comforter throw. I like a bit of 'weight' on me when I'm sleeping...and we didn't know how warm/cool the room would be. I was glad I had taken my blankie! I wore basically what I planned to sleep in... a sort of soft velour pants/pajama type of thing, that I wasn't embarrassed to be seen in out in public, plus didn't have to take a robe. DH wore his regular clothing, and took a set of lounge type pj's. No pillow or blankie for him! I got a room with a queen size bed and a nice recliner. He got a double bed & no recliner. The tech attached a bunch of little gizmo-s that then got wires hooked onto them; the other end of the wire hooked into a little monitor type box. If you had to visit the bathroom, the tech had to come in to disconnect you from the monitor.And you had to be careful as you trudged along, not to get all tangled in the wires or get the wires tangled as you handled business. I sip water all during the night, so of course I had to get up a time or two. DH was in the room next to mine, which was very comforting to me. (more on that in a bit!). My scalp had about 6 gizmo's with wires in it, and I had 2 'things' sort of in my nostrils...like you get oxygen through. The lady taped the wires for these to my cheeks, because I told her "No way will these stay put". I had just shampoo'd & fixed my hair that afternoon, and wasn't keen on the stuff that was used to stick the gizmos to my scalp. I had one on each leg, one on my back, two on my chest (I think there was one on each side). Then I was instructed, that I needed to try to go to sleep at 11pm. This made me quite anxious, because I'm a night owl, and I can no longer go to sleep 'on command' as it were. I was allowed to leave a low-wattage lamp on, so I looked at a card magazine for a while. The light wasn't very adequate, so I switched it off, turned on my kindle, which has its own little reading light. Being a staunch conformist, I did stop reading at 11, and tried to do as instructed. Surprisingly, I did go to sleep in about 30 minutes. The bed was quite comfy, but I do NOT like strange beds. I think I was much more restless than I normally am. There was a camera mounted about ceiling level, that pointed right at the sleeper. The tech watched the patient on a computer that was hooked into the monitor in each patient's room. I think DH & I were the only 2 people last night, but the tech told us, each technician can be responsible for 3 patients. She was a fairly young lady, and I was concerned that she was there alone. I mean, after all, we could have been ANY one, and here she is all alone with us! Wouldn't want that for my daughter I'll tell you. Then I had the most awful unsettling dream, the kind where you know you're dreaming, you wake up, but yet you really don't. I dreamed that someone came into the room where I was, and that was really disturbing. I didn't want this person in there! Yet even in my dream, I realized DH was next door, so I could yell and he'd hear me. Of course I'm telling this person "You get out of my room", and no sound is coming out! Boy was I glad when I finally really did wake up for sure! So one of the questions I had to answer this am, was did I have any unpleasant dreams and I wrote a big YES! I  finally had to shampoo my hair again to get this gunky glue out of it. The tech woke us up at 6am, unhooked all the wires, had us complete a questionnaire, and said "Have a good weekend, bye". Other than the dream, it was not an unpleasant experience. Of course DH claims he never slept a bit (but he always tells me that even at home; when I'm awake, he sure sounds like he is asleep!). We were both glad to get home, crawled into our own bed, and slept some more for a couple hours. (Except for the stupid phone calls from solicitors - about 5 times.) I was becoming quite the cranky ole lady with the last one! So that was our night away from home, and right glad we were to get back to our usual surroundings. Nothing better than your own bed, your own stuff about you! Have a great weekend, and thanks for coming to visit. Hope this was instructive or at least gave you a chuckle as you read it! Many Hugs.