Well, I'm back from the sleep center. It's a few nicer appointed rooms in a fairly nice hospital. The strange evening started with me leaving my family for the night at 7:30 PM. The kids were very confused.
Then, following their directions, I ended up driving through all of Patterson, NJ. I'm sorry to any loyal readers from that area, but let me tell you, downtown Patterson is about as bad an area as I have ever seen, and I went to school on the south side of Chicago, and used to take courses at Columbia. It's UGLY. I thought I was going to be going into a hospital there, but I kept driving and driving until I ended up in a really nice area of God-knows-where and the hospital. If anyone knows "William Patterson University", it's right there.
An odd aside, I once went to a piano sale at WPU, and as soon as I got on that stretch of road I realized that I knew where I was. In fact, I took that way home from memory instead of going through Patterson at 6:00 AM.
But, where was I...ah yes, it's a strange thing to walk into a hospital at 8:00 PM carrying a pillow. I playfully told the information woman "Give you three guesses where I'm going!" Apparently, blank stares don't count as guesses, so she gets to keep all three of hers...
Once situated, I met my technician, Cherise (sp?), who was very polite and businesslike, but a bit offputting. In any case, I got wired up like that pin cushion guy from Hellraiser and then was told to go to bed at 9. Well, not that simple, but by around 11, I was asleep with the admonition that Cherise would only come into my room for three reasons:
1, if one of the leads came off (none did.)
2, if I called her because I had to go to the bathroom or some other thing (there was a mic in the room)
3, if I snored/showed signs of sleep apnea badly enough that it wasn't really a question and she had enough data.
Guess what? 1 AM comes and she's waking me up. Apparently, #3 came true. I'm a bear who can't breathe.
*More later*
Continuing, it's 1:00 AM and I get woken up because my apnea/snoring is significant enough that a CPAP trial is warranted. Now, realize, I'm JUST woken up, totally groggy, and here's this woman telling me it's time to put on this mask and to breathe through my nose not my mouth, as she slips on a nasal CPAP mask. I nod and let her do it, and start trying to breathe through every orifice on my body all at once. What occurs is, essentially, a panic attack and I nearly ripped the mask from my face, to the sounds of Cherise saying "Oh, don't do that, you'll pull the wires out." What I'm thinking is "BREATHE. MUST BREATHE." and she's talking about the wires. F the wires.
I got it off and relaxed finally, and then she put on a full face mask which goes over the nose and mouth, and which I had no trouble getting comfortable (comparatively) in. Now it's about 1:30 and the command is "try and sleep" so that she can get "levels" for me. I think she means what level of airflow would best work for me, but I was too out of it to really get clear. Anyway, there's something funny that happens during a panic attack. It's called adrenaline. And you get lots and lots of it.
And then it's hard to sleep. REALLY hard.
So, I fell asleep at around 5. And they woke me at...6!
She said at around 3 that there was no way they were going to get enough data on the flow-thingie that they wanted, so odd's are very strong I'll have to go back. But, even though there was no more useful data to be collected, I should try to wear the max to "get used to it" because "you'll have to wear it the rest of your life." Um. Ouch. That's the PERFECT thing to tell someone who just had a panic attack.
The rest of the evening was a slow, painful crawl 'till wake up. And then I got into my car and promptly 1, got lost, 2, found the right way, 3, realized I had left my pillow back at the hospital, 4, returned to get it, and 5, finally limped home, unhappy, exhausted, and slept for 3 more hours.
So, more when I hear from the sleep doctor. Maybe I'll just be able to cut off my head and breathe through the big hole left over?
Whee!
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