Working in a fog
Dec. 29th, 2005 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerReported to the Sleep Center at 8pm sharp last night. I know now that I immediately for any Presbyterian Hospital visit have to:
1) Indicate that I am still on United Healthcare coverage, give them my card so they can make another of countless copies of it
2) My last name is E-Y-L-E-R
3) My first name is William
4) My date of birth is 06-19-54 (they freak if you say 'June')
So, just as soon as I checked in at the ER (this hospital is an ER, a hospice and a sleep center. Go figure.), a HANDSOME MOUSTACHED COWBOY COMPLETE WITH HAT checks in right behind me. That gets me all aflutter! He looks a LOT like Jon, my 1998-2000 fling-o-rama. Mmmm...very rugged slender Marlboro man-ish.
So Victor gets me set up in this previously-a-semi-private-now-a-private "bedroom." He's a VERY tall 30ish man with a gentle manner and few words. Too few. I had to ask lots of questions about what was going to happen. I didn't ask where the TV controls were, but I did have a good book with me.
In any case, he set me in the room to relax for about two hours, then came to get me at 10:15 to hook me up to all these electrodes, after marking my head with a (Danny tells me) blue marker, and putting glue on various spots, then hooking electrodes to my leg, and my upper chest to monitor the a-fib as well. I kept thinking how lucky people that shave their heads must be if they have a sleep test.
Suddently, the HANDSOME MOUSTACHED COWBOY was guided into an adjoining curtained alcove next to mine for his own hookups, and gave me a pleasant, surprised look as he passed me. Hmm! I was dressed in my flannel pjs, courtesy of Danny. He was in a Tshirt and boxers. Over the 20 minutes it took me to get fully electroded, I overheard the guy say the word "wife" to the woman who was hooking him up...oh, well! All I learned about him was that Dec 29 he was retiring from whatever work he was doing, that he was thinking of going into some sort of consulting work, and that he has a lot of nieces and nephews visiting.
Victor tried to make small talk with me (as he has to do at least twice a night, five nights a week) about football and various things I know NOTHING about. Victor, finding the conversational gambits exhausted then guided me, now dressed as Frankenstein's furrier brother, back to the 'bedroom' for my sleep. I did think to ask him what I should do if I needed to pee during the night, and he said "just say my name out loud". Hmmm...
Well, it wasn't a pleasant night. But not as weird as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
allanh made it sound. Early on, he had 'tested' three different masks on me, which I thought was a huge waste, since I picked the third and the other two masks were probably tossed since I had put my nose in them for a mere second or two. He says everyone picks the third, which is more like swimmer's nose plugs with a tube attached. When he fitted me for it while I was standing, it was comfortable, but...
Anyway, after 'lights out,' although tired, I just LAY there for several hours, maybe dozing, I'm not sure. I wasn't sure at first if I could turn over with all the wires, and the bedcovers were hugely heavy and I couldn't get them off me. My feet were totally cramped by the sheets. After an interminable length of time, Victor came in to hook me up to the CPAP, and I took that opportunity to make a run to the loo and dislodge myself from the cocoon. After I was back and hooked up with no fanfare or explanation, he plugged the CPAP mask on me and headed out.
I lay there AGAIN, this time trying to get used to what this breathing machine was doing. I can't describe or make sense of what it was doing, since I was breathing fairly normally, but it was putting out a constant stream of air SOMEWHERE. Everytime I tried to open my mouth, I couldn't, not really, and I sure couldn't talk. I was sort of like having the wind sucked out of you.
The mask that felt comfortable when I was standing was NOT when I was laying down, mostly because I thought the tubes were trying to cut a hole through my nose. I was able to loosen it a bit, which helped some. A couple of times, I sort of felt I was going into a-fib again, but wasn't quite sure. I had taken another Cardizem LA at 7:30pm. I tried all my old get-to-sleep formulas, but nothing.
I'm sure I lay there at least two more hours, and it was probably about three in the morning the last I remember. I did turn from side to side, rearranging the finger blood monitor, the wires up my leg and the mass of wires at the top of my head. I remember thinking many times that this whole exercise must be a GATEKEEPER formula for selling CPAP machines to an unwary, naive public.
Then apparently I DID sleep, because Victor said, "Mr Eyler, time to wake up" at what turned out to be 6:35am. I've never felt groggier in my life, and after he unhooked me, I almost had to be lead to the de-electroding room, where he smeared a goo on my head to free the things. I wasn't conscious enough to ask good questions.
Victor did say that normally they wake people up at 6, but I was in such a deep REM sleep that they let me ride it out...he said I was dreaming about 45 minutes, not a moment of which I remember, except that I WAS dreaming when he woke me up. Probably something about drywall.
He said I was free to go after I dressed. Back in the room was a duplicate of the form I had signed last night saying how dangerous it was for one to drive if "Daytime Drowsy". Jeez.
So, home I drove, feeling like I hadn't slept a wink, and my nose hurt.
Wonder what the sleep doc is going to make of all this. It can't be uncommon to NOT sleep during one of those tests. Normally, I fall asleep within 3 minutes of going to bed, but of course not LAST night.
Danny had just gotten up. After he showered and greeted me in the living room, he told me that he had turned the whole house alarm on since the dog next door was barking at some ungodly hour. If I had come home a mere five minutes earlier, the break-in alarm would have gone off after I opened the back door! He said he hadn't slept well either, so tonight we'll have a major snuggle session and sleep the sleep of the blessed.
1) Indicate that I am still on United Healthcare coverage, give them my card so they can make another of countless copies of it
2) My last name is E-Y-L-E-R
3) My first name is William
4) My date of birth is 06-19-54 (they freak if you say 'June')
So, just as soon as I checked in at the ER (this hospital is an ER, a hospice and a sleep center. Go figure.), a HANDSOME MOUSTACHED COWBOY COMPLETE WITH HAT checks in right behind me. That gets me all aflutter! He looks a LOT like Jon, my 1998-2000 fling-o-rama. Mmmm...very rugged slender Marlboro man-ish.
So Victor gets me set up in this previously-a-semi-private-now-a-private "bedroom." He's a VERY tall 30ish man with a gentle manner and few words. Too few. I had to ask lots of questions about what was going to happen. I didn't ask where the TV controls were, but I did have a good book with me.
In any case, he set me in the room to relax for about two hours, then came to get me at 10:15 to hook me up to all these electrodes, after marking my head with a (Danny tells me) blue marker, and putting glue on various spots, then hooking electrodes to my leg, and my upper chest to monitor the a-fib as well. I kept thinking how lucky people that shave their heads must be if they have a sleep test.
Suddently, the HANDSOME MOUSTACHED COWBOY was guided into an adjoining curtained alcove next to mine for his own hookups, and gave me a pleasant, surprised look as he passed me. Hmm! I was dressed in my flannel pjs, courtesy of Danny. He was in a Tshirt and boxers. Over the 20 minutes it took me to get fully electroded, I overheard the guy say the word "wife" to the woman who was hooking him up...oh, well! All I learned about him was that Dec 29 he was retiring from whatever work he was doing, that he was thinking of going into some sort of consulting work, and that he has a lot of nieces and nephews visiting.
Victor tried to make small talk with me (as he has to do at least twice a night, five nights a week) about football and various things I know NOTHING about. Victor, finding the conversational gambits exhausted then guided me, now dressed as Frankenstein's furrier brother, back to the 'bedroom' for my sleep. I did think to ask him what I should do if I needed to pee during the night, and he said "just say my name out loud". Hmmm...
Well, it wasn't a pleasant night. But not as weird as
allanh made it sound. Early on, he had 'tested' three different masks on me, which I thought was a huge waste, since I picked the third and the other two masks were probably tossed since I had put my nose in them for a mere second or two. He says everyone picks the third, which is more like swimmer's nose plugs with a tube attached. When he fitted me for it while I was standing, it was comfortable, but...Anyway, after 'lights out,' although tired, I just LAY there for several hours, maybe dozing, I'm not sure. I wasn't sure at first if I could turn over with all the wires, and the bedcovers were hugely heavy and I couldn't get them off me. My feet were totally cramped by the sheets. After an interminable length of time, Victor came in to hook me up to the CPAP, and I took that opportunity to make a run to the loo and dislodge myself from the cocoon. After I was back and hooked up with no fanfare or explanation, he plugged the CPAP mask on me and headed out.
I lay there AGAIN, this time trying to get used to what this breathing machine was doing. I can't describe or make sense of what it was doing, since I was breathing fairly normally, but it was putting out a constant stream of air SOMEWHERE. Everytime I tried to open my mouth, I couldn't, not really, and I sure couldn't talk. I was sort of like having the wind sucked out of you.
The mask that felt comfortable when I was standing was NOT when I was laying down, mostly because I thought the tubes were trying to cut a hole through my nose. I was able to loosen it a bit, which helped some. A couple of times, I sort of felt I was going into a-fib again, but wasn't quite sure. I had taken another Cardizem LA at 7:30pm. I tried all my old get-to-sleep formulas, but nothing.
I'm sure I lay there at least two more hours, and it was probably about three in the morning the last I remember. I did turn from side to side, rearranging the finger blood monitor, the wires up my leg and the mass of wires at the top of my head. I remember thinking many times that this whole exercise must be a GATEKEEPER formula for selling CPAP machines to an unwary, naive public.
Then apparently I DID sleep, because Victor said, "Mr Eyler, time to wake up" at what turned out to be 6:35am. I've never felt groggier in my life, and after he unhooked me, I almost had to be lead to the de-electroding room, where he smeared a goo on my head to free the things. I wasn't conscious enough to ask good questions.
Victor did say that normally they wake people up at 6, but I was in such a deep REM sleep that they let me ride it out...he said I was dreaming about 45 minutes, not a moment of which I remember, except that I WAS dreaming when he woke me up. Probably something about drywall.
He said I was free to go after I dressed. Back in the room was a duplicate of the form I had signed last night saying how dangerous it was for one to drive if "Daytime Drowsy". Jeez.
So, home I drove, feeling like I hadn't slept a wink, and my nose hurt.
Wonder what the sleep doc is going to make of all this. It can't be uncommon to NOT sleep during one of those tests. Normally, I fall asleep within 3 minutes of going to bed, but of course not LAST night.
Danny had just gotten up. After he showered and greeted me in the living room, he told me that he had turned the whole house alarm on since the dog next door was barking at some ungodly hour. If I had come home a mere five minutes earlier, the break-in alarm would have gone off after I opened the back door! He said he hadn't slept well either, so tonight we'll have a major snuggle session and sleep the sleep of the blessed.
