So I spent last night at St John’s Hospital in the Sleep Disorders Center. During my last doctor’s appointment, the doctor and I started discussing my daily headaches again. Again. I’ve had a daily headache for about five years. Usually, I wake up feeling like I have a mild hangover (even after not drinking!) and a couple Excedrin sets me right for the rest of the day. I also get pretty bad migraines, although not very often. Over the years (and seeing doctor after doctor) I think the two headache types have gotten confused because three or four years ago I was diagnosed with chronic daily migraines. Now the daily headaches have never been nearly as bad as my migraines. But the doctor said ‘daily migraines’, so… daily migraines it is.
Anyway - back to the recent doctor visit. She started asking me a bunch of questions. “Do you wake up with a dry throat?” Yeah! Sometimes it’s so bad my throat feels like it’s swollen until lunchtime. “Do you snore?” Oh, boy. Well, if my wife and daughter can be believed, I do. For a very long time, I resisted the thought that I was a ‘snorer’. But after years of my Carrie and Ashley telling me that they can hear me snore in the next room with the door closed, I relinquished and admitted that I might snore. “Do you ever fall asleep during the day?” Yeah, almost every day on the bus to and from work. (I keep waiting for the day I sleep through my stop. Hasn’t happened yet. So far so good.)
Well, the sleepy, snoring, dry-throat, morning headache symptoms led the doctor to suggest a sleep study.
So I arrive last night at about 8:30 pm and meet with my sleep technician. I am handed a bunch of papers to fill out, and she started to prepare my room. I was going to be the only one there for a sleep test. Shortly after I begin filling out the paperwork the tech yells out “wave your hands, so I can see you in the video. (I was to be videotaped all night long). So I begin waving. Nothing. “I can’t see you,” she says. I get up and walk out to the desk where she’s messing with the computer. I immediately notice that the image on the screen is not my room. I folded up my t-shirt and sweats and put my book on the nightstand once I got there and the image on the screen showed an empty nightstand. So I tell her “that’s not my room”. “Yes, it is,” she says “but the camera doesn’t seem to be working.” Hmmm… ok then. I go back to my room and fill out some more papers. Soon I can hear the tech on the phone to the camera people. It’s obvious from her side of the conversation that they’re asking her to reboot, or power-cycle the camera server. Only she can’t find the camera server. Thinking to myself “this can’t be this difficult”, I wander out to the desk again. By now she’s off the phone and talking about doing the study without video. I don’t know anything about the study, but it seems that the video part might be important, so I ask her “can I take a look at it? I work with computers.” She seemed relieved and said “sure, go ahead!” Now I knew right off the bat that I wasn’t going to touch anything - god forbid, I touch something and make things worse. So as I’m looking around I notice some familiar things… cat-5 cables… a router… some converters… A ha! “Here’s your camera server”, I tell the tech. “Really?” she says. “Are you sure?” “Yep, see how the wires are numbered camera one and camera two? Just pull and replug the power cord on the back of the box” I say, pointing to the power connector. She power-cycles the server and …voilà! Video works again!!
So long story short… I’m her hero. The tests can continue.
About this time I’m seated in the chair in my room as she starts to apply a bunch of leads and probes all over my head and neck. And a couple on my legs. It took a long time. See for yourself how many wires I was connected to.
Originally, I wanted a picture of myself all wired up, but as the wiring went on, I got more and more uncomfortable and decided that I didn’t want to take the picture after all.
After what seemed like an hour (she took my phone and there was no other clock anywhere) I am settled into bed with the instructions to try to sleep on my back (apnea events are most likely to happen while you’re on your back). Fine.
I have no idea how much time had passed, but I was sure that I hadn’t slept. I remember counting the tiles on the ceiling and then the lights in the ceiling and then counting my breaths as I tried and tried to fall to sleep. No Dice. I was thinking “this was a big, fat waste of time”. I’m not going to get any answers unless I fall asleep, and I’m not sleeping.
The next thing I know the sleep tech is at my bedside. “We’re going to go ahead and put you in a nasal mask. You’re averaging 35 apnea events per hour.” 35 an hour!! I wasn’t even asleep!! I told her this and she disagreed. “Oh you were asleep alright, but it was very poor sleep. At one point you stopped breathing 29 times in 30 minutes.” I was shocked - but hell, she must know - she was the one looking at the results of all these wires.
After fighting with the mask for about twenty minutes, I get comfortable enough to fall to sleep.
Soon after, (it seemed) the tech is back at my side. “Good morning!” she says. “How do you feel?” I didn’t feel bad. I tell her that I felt pretty good. I still have no idea what time it is.
“After wearing the mask you stopped snoring completely and didn’t have any more apnea events.” she informs me. “You even entered REM sleep twice.” Apparently, I had not entered REM sleep at all before the mask. Meaning that I had not completed a sleep cycle at all. Meaning that in all likelihood, there have been entire nights that I never really slept.
Wow. What an experience. After the sleep tech disconnected me and handed me a ‘morning survey’ to fill out I put my sweats and shirt back on. Even though I only slept (really slept) about half the night, I felt surprisingly awake. The sleep tech informed me that the Sleep Clinic doctor will have to go over the results, and then he’ll send them on to my family doctor.
“So I’ll need a CPAP machine, huh?” I asked her. “Oh yes, most likely” she answered. “How long before I hear something?” “Probably about two weeks”.
Damn. Now that I know that I’m practically suffocating in my sleep, I have to wait two more weeks before I get any relief. Oh, well. At least I know what’s happening now. At least I’ve taken the first step.
Now Carrie and Ashley can start thinking up insulting nicknames for my bedtime apparatus. “Hose-eh” (Jose) and “The Incredible Sleeping Hose Monster” are at the top of the list so far.
Call me what you want. As long as I start feeling better.