Adventures in sleeping
Nov. 3rd, 2013 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyI didn't go to any costume parties, and I haven't been trick-or-treating in almost thirty years, but I can truthfully say that this year I was the Bride of Frankenstein for Halloween.
On October 31st, I went into the Wisconsin Sleep Clinic for a polysomnogram--or, in plain English, a sleep study. A polysomnogram diagnoses a great many different sleep disorders: sleep apnea, parasomnias like periodic limb movement disorder, sleep bruxism (teeth-grinding), etc.. But, of course, in order to do this, they have to wire you for umpteen gazillion different measurements. The process takes about forty-five minutes.
My extremely nice and cheerful technician put four sensors on my scalp (attached with a revolting gummy paste) to monitor brain waves; one beside my right eye and one beside my left eye to track eye-movements; one along my chin to check for bruxism; a microphone taped to my throat to monitor snoring; one sensor on each shoulder, one on my left side and two on my right side--all checking on the work various chest muscles were doing; one on each leg to track involuntary leg movements. Then there were two bands, one just under the armpits and one at the floating ribs, to measure lung expansion, and a clever little device that attached to the lower band and noted sleeping position (back, left side, right side, stomach). There was the inevitable finger clamp to measure blood oxygen levels. And there were two--not one, but two sensors that hooked into the nostrils. The tech remarked that she was fairly sure the people who designed the sensors had never themselves been the patient in a sleep study.
All of these sensors had wires, and all of the wires plugged into a box like a switchboard or a circuit breaker, which was hung on a hook over the head of the bed. If the patient has to get up in the night--as, in fact, I did--the tech comes in, unplugs two wires, and hands you the box, which you then carry with you as you do whatever it is you need to do.
Once all the sensors are in place and the box is on its hook, the tech goes back to their control room, and leads the patient through a series of little exercises to calibrate everything. The only particularly difficult one is the not-blinking one. And for some reason, I had a hell of a time faking a snore.
And now comes the hard part: you have to go to sleep.
I was at a severe disadvantage, because my tech told me the doctors prefer it if patients sleep on their backs. This makes any apnea that may be present more severe and thus easier to detect. Which totally makes sense, but I never sleep on my back (except for those six plus weeks after I broke my ankle when there was no other position I could manage). I hate it and find it miserably uncomfortable--and moreover, speaking of my right ankle, it requires a certain amount of jury-rigging, because my ankle can't bear any weight on it in that position for any length of time.
But I cooperated. I lay there on my back and tried to sleep. There was a little red light and a little green light directly facing the bed (smoke detector? more monitors? I have no idea), and I could feel them glaring at me even with my eyes closed. For a while, I could hear the patient in the next "sleep suite" talking to his technician. My feet were freezing (which my long-suffering spouse can attest never happens). And after a while, inevitably, my RLS began increasing in severity, like a toddler trying to get a distracted parent's attention, going from the need to move to actual twitching. At the point it began actually jerking my leg up, I cried uncle. Or, more literally, I asked the tech to come help me take one of my narcotic pills, which I had thoughtfully packed along with me. (You're wired for sound, remember--it's like Star Trek, where you talk to an empty room and the computer, or the tech, hears you.) We also rigged an extra blanket over my left foot and right shin.
And then I lay there and tried to go to sleep some more.
I was eventually successful, which I know because I woke up some time later. My arms and heels were aching from staying on my back, and I was horribly wide awake. Eventually, in desperation, I asked the tech to come unhook me, on the theory that getting up, going to the bathroom, and coming back would remind my body that the next part of the routine was going back to sleep. The tech also told me I was okay to sleep on my side now, which was a nearly miraculous relief. The mirror in the bathroom said, Bride of Frankenstein, à la H. R. Giger; the box was heavy and awkward. Getting back in bed required yet more careful jury-rigging.
And then I lay there, on my left side, and tried to go back to sleep.
I know I succeeded, although I think a lot of it was somewhere between dozing and dreaming about lying there, on my left side, trying to sleep, because when the tech came at 6 to unhook me, she definitely woke me up. One of the questions she asked me in the debriefing was how many times I remembered her waking me up. I know she had to come in once because the finger clamp had worked itself loose, and I think there was a second time she woke me up, but I can't now remember what it was about. She asked how many hours of sleep I felt like I'd got, and although it was probably somewhere around 8, I had to tell her it felt like 5.
Free of the wires, I went to shower--a desperate necessity to get rid of the gummy paste in my hair. And the shower was fine, everything going well, until I went to adjust the water temperature, and the handle stuck. Stuck fast, like it wasn't even designed to move, and as best I can tell, informing the rest of the apparatus that full-on hot was what was required. It was not hot enough to scald, but it was certainly hot enough to be quite uncomfortable, and I got through mostly on brute stubbornness and the fervent desire to get the adhesive off my skin. It was, however, very effective as a wake-up call.
I got out, got dressed, got my stuff together, wound my hair up--still feeling a little Bride of Frankenstein-ish, made a last futile attempt to turn the shower off, and went off into the pre-dawn emptiness of a medical clinic to find someone to tell about the shower. Long empty hallways in one direction, long empty hallways in the other direction--I finally found the control room and knocked. (I'm still a little baffled by how surprised they were that I bothered to tell them.) And having done the best I could, I went to investigate the "continental breakfast"--by which, it turns out, they mean single-serving cereal packages and a jar of Kellogg's fiber bars. The Continent cries out in vehement protest.
I ate--considerably startled when the semi-Muzak I was semi-listening to threw the line "stares into space like a dead china doll" at me--and went out to the waiting room to wait for my long-suffering spouse to come pick me up (due to migraine issues the night before, I had not felt confident in my ability to drive safely). Patients and night-shift technicians went home; day-shift receptionists and technicians and the first patients of the day started coming it. I felt stiff and underslept and not entirely free of adhesive residue.
Friday afternoon, I got a call with the results. I have, as it turns out, mild sleep apnea--meaning that my breathing is obstructed between 6 and 10 times an hour while I sleep. Sometime soon, I will be going in to get a little Cthullu machine to keep my airways open.
And hopefully, before too much longer, I will stop spending every day feeling quite so goddamn tired.
On October 31st, I went into the Wisconsin Sleep Clinic for a polysomnogram--or, in plain English, a sleep study. A polysomnogram diagnoses a great many different sleep disorders: sleep apnea, parasomnias like periodic limb movement disorder, sleep bruxism (teeth-grinding), etc.. But, of course, in order to do this, they have to wire you for umpteen gazillion different measurements. The process takes about forty-five minutes.
My extremely nice and cheerful technician put four sensors on my scalp (attached with a revolting gummy paste) to monitor brain waves; one beside my right eye and one beside my left eye to track eye-movements; one along my chin to check for bruxism; a microphone taped to my throat to monitor snoring; one sensor on each shoulder, one on my left side and two on my right side--all checking on the work various chest muscles were doing; one on each leg to track involuntary leg movements. Then there were two bands, one just under the armpits and one at the floating ribs, to measure lung expansion, and a clever little device that attached to the lower band and noted sleeping position (back, left side, right side, stomach). There was the inevitable finger clamp to measure blood oxygen levels. And there were two--not one, but two sensors that hooked into the nostrils. The tech remarked that she was fairly sure the people who designed the sensors had never themselves been the patient in a sleep study.
All of these sensors had wires, and all of the wires plugged into a box like a switchboard or a circuit breaker, which was hung on a hook over the head of the bed. If the patient has to get up in the night--as, in fact, I did--the tech comes in, unplugs two wires, and hands you the box, which you then carry with you as you do whatever it is you need to do.
Once all the sensors are in place and the box is on its hook, the tech goes back to their control room, and leads the patient through a series of little exercises to calibrate everything. The only particularly difficult one is the not-blinking one. And for some reason, I had a hell of a time faking a snore.
And now comes the hard part: you have to go to sleep.
I was at a severe disadvantage, because my tech told me the doctors prefer it if patients sleep on their backs. This makes any apnea that may be present more severe and thus easier to detect. Which totally makes sense, but I never sleep on my back (except for those six plus weeks after I broke my ankle when there was no other position I could manage). I hate it and find it miserably uncomfortable--and moreover, speaking of my right ankle, it requires a certain amount of jury-rigging, because my ankle can't bear any weight on it in that position for any length of time.
But I cooperated. I lay there on my back and tried to sleep. There was a little red light and a little green light directly facing the bed (smoke detector? more monitors? I have no idea), and I could feel them glaring at me even with my eyes closed. For a while, I could hear the patient in the next "sleep suite" talking to his technician. My feet were freezing (which my long-suffering spouse can attest never happens). And after a while, inevitably, my RLS began increasing in severity, like a toddler trying to get a distracted parent's attention, going from the need to move to actual twitching. At the point it began actually jerking my leg up, I cried uncle. Or, more literally, I asked the tech to come help me take one of my narcotic pills, which I had thoughtfully packed along with me. (You're wired for sound, remember--it's like Star Trek, where you talk to an empty room and the computer, or the tech, hears you.) We also rigged an extra blanket over my left foot and right shin.
And then I lay there and tried to go to sleep some more.
I was eventually successful, which I know because I woke up some time later. My arms and heels were aching from staying on my back, and I was horribly wide awake. Eventually, in desperation, I asked the tech to come unhook me, on the theory that getting up, going to the bathroom, and coming back would remind my body that the next part of the routine was going back to sleep. The tech also told me I was okay to sleep on my side now, which was a nearly miraculous relief. The mirror in the bathroom said, Bride of Frankenstein, à la H. R. Giger; the box was heavy and awkward. Getting back in bed required yet more careful jury-rigging.
And then I lay there, on my left side, and tried to go back to sleep.
I know I succeeded, although I think a lot of it was somewhere between dozing and dreaming about lying there, on my left side, trying to sleep, because when the tech came at 6 to unhook me, she definitely woke me up. One of the questions she asked me in the debriefing was how many times I remembered her waking me up. I know she had to come in once because the finger clamp had worked itself loose, and I think there was a second time she woke me up, but I can't now remember what it was about. She asked how many hours of sleep I felt like I'd got, and although it was probably somewhere around 8, I had to tell her it felt like 5.
Free of the wires, I went to shower--a desperate necessity to get rid of the gummy paste in my hair. And the shower was fine, everything going well, until I went to adjust the water temperature, and the handle stuck. Stuck fast, like it wasn't even designed to move, and as best I can tell, informing the rest of the apparatus that full-on hot was what was required. It was not hot enough to scald, but it was certainly hot enough to be quite uncomfortable, and I got through mostly on brute stubbornness and the fervent desire to get the adhesive off my skin. It was, however, very effective as a wake-up call.
I got out, got dressed, got my stuff together, wound my hair up--still feeling a little Bride of Frankenstein-ish, made a last futile attempt to turn the shower off, and went off into the pre-dawn emptiness of a medical clinic to find someone to tell about the shower. Long empty hallways in one direction, long empty hallways in the other direction--I finally found the control room and knocked. (I'm still a little baffled by how surprised they were that I bothered to tell them.) And having done the best I could, I went to investigate the "continental breakfast"--by which, it turns out, they mean single-serving cereal packages and a jar of Kellogg's fiber bars. The Continent cries out in vehement protest.
I ate--considerably startled when the semi-Muzak I was semi-listening to threw the line "stares into space like a dead china doll" at me--and went out to the waiting room to wait for my long-suffering spouse to come pick me up (due to migraine issues the night before, I had not felt confident in my ability to drive safely). Patients and night-shift technicians went home; day-shift receptionists and technicians and the first patients of the day started coming it. I felt stiff and underslept and not entirely free of adhesive residue.
Friday afternoon, I got a call with the results. I have, as it turns out, mild sleep apnea--meaning that my breathing is obstructed between 6 and 10 times an hour while I sleep. Sometime soon, I will be going in to get a little Cthullu machine to keep my airways open.
And hopefully, before too much longer, I will stop spending every day feeling quite so goddamn tired.
