Miss Mia and her lovely jam 'stache & goatee... I don't know how she does it, but this little girl just keeps getting cuter and cuter!
My Dad's favorite snippets are her calling him "Guapa" (because she can't say Grandpa yet) and how she thinks that every single person is on the end of the phone whenever she wants them -- i.e. she'll be talking to my parents and ask for Ali's parents -- Popi Tom and Grandma. As if she's there on the phone, and therefore everybody else must be together somewhere -- on the end of the phone...
I can only hope that if we ever do have kids that ours will be half as much fun (and half as cute!) as Miss Mia....
There was one point in the night where I woke up and had a bit of a mini panic attack -- it is the strangest feeling in the world to wake up and feel short of breath and to take big huge breaths to catch your breath and feel and hear the air being pushed out of your mouth...
I am clausterphobic, and when I woke up and felt that, it was awful. The machine basically takes room air and gives it more pressure -- as opposed to it being an oxygen tank. When I woke up like that, all I wanted was a fresh breath -- this may or may not be a problem when I get the actual machine -- the feeling of breathing stale air.... argh.
Anyhow -- I was supposed to go back for my last appointment this morning with the doctor -- to be prescribed the CPAP machine and to collect it to begin using it at home. But as things have it -- that particular doctor is moving off from the practice to start up her own practice, and hence I was given a phone message with the option of rescheduling with her at her new practice, or rescheduling with a different doc at the old one.
I ended up with a different doc at the old one, merely because I did not want to go through the whole song and dance routine again of finding out if she would be covered under my insurance in her new practice.... what a nightmare.
So my appointment is next week -- on Monday.
Hopefully there ends my sleep problems, and as a result, Andy's sleep problems too!
Sorry about that.
Life just took over and add to that the fact that the last time I typed up a lovely (long) blog entry it went missing into the great wide beyond... my motivation to blog was diminished.
so I'll play a little bit of catchup for you...
Part two of the sleep study went as well as could be expected -- I had requested that the doctor in charge of my study prescribe a sleep "aid" for me for my second night doing the study because I was told by the sleep lab technician that most people are able to fall asleep on their own the first night (which I failed abysmally at!) but they struggle to fall asleep on the second night because it is uncomfortable to sleep with the CPAP (continuous positive air pressure) mask on. So, figuring that if I didn't sleep the first time, I was reallllly going to struggle the second time, I asked for the prescription. She prescribed a med called Sonata, which helps you fall asleep but doesn't keep you asleep. She prescribed two pills, yet the outside of the bottle said take one pill. So I followed directions (should have taken them both together!!) and ended up feeling very drowsy and sleepy but never actually falling asleep. So after a while the lab tech brought the other pill in and I took that and evetually fell asleep.
The sleep mask is very awkward -- although she gave me a choice of three different kinds -- one that is like a shell that fits over the nose, one that fits over nose and mouth (apparently not recommended by the doctors because of the "leakage factor" -- it's all about keeping the air going into my lungs at a certain pressure, and if the air is leaking out from the edges of the mask or from my mouth or wherever, the pressure is decreased and the mask isn't getting to do what I need it to do.) The third option was the one I chose -- apparently it is the doctors' favorite because it has the minimal amount of leakage factors. It looks like a smaller version of the expandable vaccuum cleaner hoses that you use the attachments on -- it's about an inch and a quarter in diameter, and has two rubber nozzles that fit just inside your nose (not highly uncomfortable, but not exactly comfy either!), and there are two straps that go behind your head to hold it in place.
Apparently, ideally you are to lie on your back to sleep with this mask, because then the mask isn't affected by pillows pushing it or your arms or anything. I was very surprised that once I did fall asleep I didn't remove the mask in my sleep -- like I used to remove my night-brace oh so long ago when I wore braces.
(cont'd)
Her name is Nicole and she's more than 5 years younger than I am. I have been working with her only since the beginning of April, but feel as though I have known her for much much much longer than that.
Yesterday I got the opportunity to get to see deeper into her personality, her life.
Just before I met her, she went to Chicago to attend the Creating Keepsakes University -- Album conference. Through this conference, she chose Heidi Swapp's "She" album tract. This means that over the course of one weekend, Nicole was in loads of sessions of trainings to learn new techniques to use in the album she was creating using Heidi Swapp materials.
We've been talking loads lately about all sorts of things, and Nicole had brought in her other albums she's created, her wedding album and her album of Eli, her little boy who will be three soon.
Yesterday she brought in her CKU-Album entitled "She". She hand
Sunday night I had to go for a "Sleep Study" at a local sleep clinic.
I have had many many nights of poor or no sleep over many years, and just assumed that it was typical and that it happened to everyone. Then I had several really bad weeks in a row and talked to my doctor and she referred me to this sleep clinic.
I had my initial consultation with them a few weeks ago and they set the dates for my studies -- I have to go twice -- once April 30th for the initial study and then if I have sleep apnea (which my doc and the sleep clinic doc both reckon I do have) the second study is to calibrate the CPAP machine (cpap stands for continuous positive air pressure -- basically sleep apnea means your air tube is closing as you sleep and you stop breathing! Your body is continually waking itself up to continue breathing! The cpap machine is a mask connected to an oxygen tank which has air with a higher pressure than just regular room air, and when your airtube begins to close, it issues puffs of air to keep it open and clear so that you don't wake up).
So I went for the study this past Sunday evening. I was nervous because I knew that I don't sleep well under pressure and especially not when I can't toss and turn and get comfortable.
I was hooked up to 18 wires and 3 bands around my torso and had tubing in my nose (not all the way up there, mind you, but in) with a little segment that went just outside my mouth. Needless to say, it was NOT comfortable. Very long whingy story short -- I felt like a marionette puppet when she told me I was finally all hooked up and could get up out of the chair and get into the bed.
The technician was super nice and very patient.
I wasn't allowed to sleep on my stomach during the study -- which when she told me that as I was being hooked up, I didn't think much of it -- I know that I do sleep on my stomach, but thought that I mainly sleep on either my left side or my right side.
Boy was I wrong.
Apparently what I do (now after having been through a night's sleep where I am aware of how/when I sleep) -- I fall asleep on my stomach with my arms up under my pillow, and with my big fluffy duvet curled up around my ears and I look like a giant burrito.
Sooo... I didn't sleep much. And the real kicker was that I was sooooo tired!! While she was placing all these electrodes in my hair (yuck -- she had to put this paste that conducts things so that these wires will read what is happening in my brain!) I was yawning away and feeling very very sleepy and comfortable.
So after lights were out and we tested all the electrodes, I closed my eyes and expected to fall right asleep.
Nope.
Not even a little bit.
So hours later, after trying to roll over onto both sides, and having pulled out at least 1 electrode connection (which brings the nice technician in with her flashlight to reconnect) -- and with her adjusting my breathing tubes -- which involves said flashlight to be shined in my face so she can see what she's doing... I call out to her and she comes to fix the tubes/wires which feel like they are choking me around my neck. At this point I confess my anxiousness of not falling asleep and ask if she can give me a tablet or something. Unfortunately she can't, so I had brought some Nyquil (cough syrup that helps you sleep) and asked if I could take that. She had to check with the other tech but came back and said it was okay. So I took it and that's when I slept for what felt like only an hour or so.
So as she was unhooking me, she's trying to comfort me by saying she thinks she got enough recorded for the doctor to analyze. I'm thinking "I sure hope you did because I don't want to do this again!!" and also thinking "at least they got a record of what a REALLY bad night of sleep looks like for me!!"...
So now I wait, and call the doc to ask for a sleep aid for the next one (which will be on May 14th), because the nice techie told me that most folks do sleep for the first sleep study, but struggle with sleeping the second time because of having to get used to the machine -- so I don't have a snowball's chance of sleeping that time... which means they can't calibrate how much/how little air to set the cpap to...
*sigh*