The Big Night!!  Only Five to Seven Years Overdue!
Last night was my Sleep Study.

It was such fun.  I had to show up at the Midway Sleep Center at 10:00 p.m. with my “sleep clothes” and a lot of paperwork.  My sleep technician (I’m not sure if she had an actual name) set me up in a perfectly comfortable room which looked like a nicely-appointed hotel room (but no television).  She then proceeded to hook me up to about twenty-five sensors.  I had them on my head (even in my hair, ick), face, and all over my body.  I had a contraption strapped under my nose.   I had a strap tightly wound around my chest.  I had a pulse reader on my finger.  All of this was connected to a board of wires that had to go with me if I left the bed to go to the (down the hall, thanks) bathroom.

Hell, who couldn’t drift easily and immediately off to sleep in such a setup?!

At least none of this was a surprise.  The big surprise was hearing that at some point in the night my S.T. might come into my room and put the actual CPAP mask on and make me sleep with the CPAP machine!

Say What?

At this point it occurs to me that I should define two important terms.

Sleep Apnea is the repeated stopping of breathing when you sleep.  It is caused by the airways in the nose and throat being obstructed.  It is very common in older (hello), male (guilty) overweight (my hand is up!) individuals with low muscle tone (oh bite me).   Apnea is very commonly undiagnosed and is very dangerous.  It is bad for the heart, can make diabetes worse, increases your chances for a stroke or heart attack by three times, and can make it almost impossible to lose weight.

Yep, did you hear that last one?  Can make it almost impossible to lose weight.

I knew going into the study that I likely had apnea.  I’ve been sleepy for about ten years.  I fight sleep at work.  I fight sleep behind the wheel.  I fight sleep during Scarlet Johansson movies — no, wait, everyone does that.

A CPAP machine (the initials stand for Continuous Positive Air Pressure) is a very common and successful way of treating sleep apnea.  You basically are wearing a mask connected to a machine which pushes air up your nose to keep those air passages from collapsing.  For years I feared this machine.  I feared its psychological affect on my would be devastating.  Only recently have I realized that not getting any sleep is much worse.
Let Me Introduce You to My Little Friend

Back to the mask.  Before lights out, my Sleep Tech introduced me to it and had me try it.  I was surprised by how horrible it wasn’t.  The gentle flow of air felt cool and nice.  ST told me that, after the initial hour or so of sleep, if I “qualified” (yes, that was the term she used), that she’d come in and mask me.

Great.

I had a hell of a time going to sleep.  Maybe it was the fact that it was only 10:30 at night.  Or maybe, just maybe, it was because I was in a strange faux hotel room in a medical building on Olympic Boulevard strapped up to about fifty electrodes knowing that my every sleep nuance was being monitored.

At any rate, at one point in the night ST did come in and did strap the mask on me.  Again, it was surprisingly okay.  The gentle flow of air felt therapeutic.  I drifted off to sleep easily.

ST woke me at 4:45 a.m. to tell me that I was all done.

The Bad News

Duh.  I DO have sleep apnea.  I have severe sleep apnea.  I will probably have to sleep with the CPAP machine for the rest of my natural life.

The Good News

The above bad news was no surprise.  What really worried me was the mask.  Could I tolerate it?  Would it be as big a nightmare as when I was given a mouthpiece to wear from my dentist a few years ago?  That little $750 experiment ended in utter failure.  (YOU try to go to sleep with a huge piece of plastic in your mouth.)

However, praise the angels, I took to the CPAP mask like a Halliburton executive to a no-bid government contract.  Today, after only a few hours of real sleep, I feel better than I have in a long time.  I’m actually looking forward to getting my very own Frankenstein sleeping machine, if it will allow me to rejoin the human race!

Now, the only quesion is this: Now that I’ve had a brief taste of how life feels after real sleep, how, o how will I be able to stand the weeks-long wait until I have a CPAP machine of my very own?!?