Just bummed.

Tired. So freakin’ tired right now. Just got home and took the dogs outside, and now sitting on the couch checking email again (like I didn’t just spend the ENTIRE DAY behind a fucking computer screen, I’m sitting on the couch with a laptop on my lap. No wonder I’m so stressed…).

Heard back from Dr. L regarding the sleep study results. He said that obstructive apneas and hypopneas were significant because, combined, they outnumbered the number of central apneas. Is hoping that the central apneas will go away or significantly reduce in number if the other problem is addressed. Said that even though heavy snoring is almost always associated with obstructive apnea, there is the possibility that I can have obstructive apnea and only occasionally snore.

So, going through with the sleep study this Saturday night. Woo freakin’ hoo.

Also thinks I have Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (similar to Restless Limbs Syndrome), so is considering trying me on either Requip or Mirapex to see if it helps.

I still don’t understand how this apnea and PLMD could be my problem when I was tired all the time long before my first sleep study, and that study supposedly didn’t show anything significant. I started dealing with insomnia after college, especially once the depression got bad, and, frankly, I’ve never been someone to feel well rested.

He didn’t address my concerns about my other symptoms. As I’m trying to type, my hands are shaking so much that it’s difficult. I dunno.

It will, in a way, be good if a CPAP or BiPAP machine can cure what ails me, or at least make a major difference in the quality of my sleep. But I’m skeptical.

Ah well – guess it’s a good thing I had long ago given up on ever having a love life. Because if I’ve got to sleep with a mask on my face every night for the rest of my life, well…can you imagine? Ugh.

I’m feeling really down right about now. For no good reason, I know, but down all the same. Eh, fuck it all. Maybe I’ll have more of an ability to fight everything else if I can ever get a good night’s sleep again.

Update

Talked to the good doctor tonight. Still thinking he didn’t get my emails. At any rate, he has NOT received my sleep study results! Seriously…

I gave him the rundown and am going to scan in the results and email them to him in the morning. He is a little concerned about the central apneas, and also about the PLMS (periodic limb movements of sleep). May be enough to be “restless limbs syndrome” but not necessarily.

He was frustrated that the sleep clinic had already called me to set up a second sleep study, as he has not ordered one. He said to not cancel yet until he has a chance to review the data – I may still be going for the sleep study on Saturday, but can’t be sure until I talk to him tomorrow.

I think my fatigue is getting worse. I am really struggling to stay awake in the daytime right now. And now, honestly, I’m wondering if maybe the first sleep study was wrong? For one thing, they never showed us the data, only their interpretation of it. For another, it may have been that I just had a particularly good night that night. I had just gotten out of a week-long stay in the psych ward at the time, so had a bit of a different mindset, I think.

I dunno. Frankly, the previous sleep study didn’t say much of anything. Dr. L gave me a copy of what they sent him so that I would have it for my records.

So, could have been errors.

Hmmm…

Maybe, just maybe, we’re on the verge of discovering the real issue behind the problem.

(and, on another note, I fell asleep on the couch this evening after work and just woke up a little bit ago – at almost 10 p.m. Gotta take the dogs out and will try to go back to bed, but will probably have a difficult time falling asleep. Jeez.)

My patience is wearing thin

I still haven’t heard from my psychiatrist since my sleep study. He’s normally very good about getting back to me relatively quickly. I emailed him, but haven’t heard anything. I paged him this morning and am hoping he’ll call me back this evening.

Perhaps his email is filtering my stuff into the spam folder. Or perhaps he’s just really busy right now.

I have a second sleep study scheduled for this coming Saturday night. Woo hoo. I am really dreading it. Not that it’s all that bad, but just the thought of having to try to sleep with a mask on my face. Ha. I had a hard enough time trying to wear the sensors last weekend, and they weren’t nearly as cumbersome as the mask will be. Plus, um, I can’t breathe through my nose much of the time, and the CPAP machine operates by blowing air into your nose. How is that supposed to work if my nose is stopped up?

Ultimately, I don’t really care what they do as long as I can feel rested and (better yet) awake during the day. Right now I’m so sleepy I can barely keep my eyes open. I will have to fight to not go to sleep as soon as I get home, because if I do, I will be up at around 9-10 p.m. and then won’t be able to go back to sleep. Argh.

I just really wish the doc would call me so I could at least pick his brain a bit on this central apnea thing. I’m trying to not worry, trying to tell myself that it’s nothing…

……………..

On another note – I wonder if getting an aircard through my cell phone company would be less expensive in the long run than having TWC road runner for internet service? I’d be willing to give up television if I could keep my internet without having to pay through the nose. As it stands, it’s not worth having high speed internet without having digital cable too, because if you buy both, they discount the price, but if you buy only one it cost nearly as much as the discounted two. And I won’t do dial-up, because I don’t have a landline at home anymore, so it would still cost as much.

I dunno. I wish there were more ways to cut corners. I already don’t drive much and I’ve been trying to cut back on my food-related expenses. That’s the hardest one for me, though, because I don’t do a very good job of planning ahead with meals and whatnot.

Ah well.

Sleep elusive.

Damn that Google shit is dangerous. Especially when you are trying to self-diagnose based on test results that you don’t fully understand.

I’m not going to Google anymore about Central Sleep Apnea until I hear from the good doctor about what these results really mean. However, I will document what I received…

I had my sleep study on Friday night. Didn’t sleep well, despite my earlier conviction that I would have a better night’s sleep as a result of having a sleep study.

The place I went was nice – four of us were having studies that night, and the clinic looked like a house. The technicians were very nice too.

Got all hooked up to the wires, went to bed at nearly 11 p.m., and had a hard time falling asleep. Big surprise, right? But I did fall asleep, and then woke up at 2:30 or so. I think. I had to go to the bathroom, so the technician unhooked my wires from the monitoring machine – the wires are plugged into a little box that is then connected to the monitoring machine via larger plugs. When you need to be unhooked, say to go to the bathroom, they unplug the box and hang the box around your neck so you are still wired up.

Anyway, after my bathroom visit, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I tossed and turned. I don’t remember falling asleep until about 4:30 a.m., but according to the data I received from the clinic, I dozed off and on from about 2:30 to about 5 a.m. Seriously, though, the graph that shows my sleep stages during that time is up and down up and down. Very little REM sleep.

And, primarily during that time, I had multiple apnea and hypopnea episodes. (Apneas are where you stop breathing, hypopneas are where your breathing becomes weak/shallow.)

The creepy part, though, is that my apneas were not solely obstructive apneas. For someone like me, who is fat, that’s what they expect. They expect that my weight is causing the apnea. Obstructive apneas are often characterized by bad snoring. It’s what both my grandmother and my uncle have, and why they use a CPAP machine to sleep at night.

But, while I did have some obstructive apneas, most of my apneas were central apneas. I had only mild and brief snoring. Central apneas are apneas caused by your brain not reminding you to take a breath. Can be caused by a number of medical conditions, or by nothing at all. Sometimes it responds to treatment with a CPAP machine, sometimes it doesn’t.

I also had a number of hypopneas, which are episodes of weak or shallow breathing that are shallow enough or last long enough to cause a significant drop in blood O2 levels and an increase in CO2 levels.

So, the sleep doc is recommending that I do a second sleep study to see if CPAP therapy will be effective for me. If not, I don’t know what is next.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if my doc wants to send me for another brain MRI. Just to rule other stuff out. I will say that the central sleep apnea and related potential causes could explain a lot of my symptoms (numbness and tingling in my limbs, rapid heart rate, headaches, vision disturbances, lightheadedness/dizziness, brain fog, etc. etc. etc.).

The other thing that freaked me out a bit was that my mean heart rate (in beats per minute) was 92.8 when I was awake, 88.8 in REM sleep and 89.1 in Non-REM sleep, but my highest heart rate (BPM) was 182. Ummm…just glad I didn’t have a heart attack, I guess. I would hope that was an error, but looking at the data, I actually had a good number of rapid heart beat episodes. Yikes.

So, cross your fingers that there’s not something scary going on. And I’ll resist further Googling.

Jott…hmmm…

I’m a sucker for Beta version products. This one came across my gmail ads today, and seems kind of interesting, especially for someone like me who can’t remember a damn thing these days. And, I don’t have an IPHONE to remind me of those things, unlike some of my fancy coworkers.

I’ll post a review after I’ve played with Jott for a while. I do like the “update your blog over the phone” thing, though. Nifty.

I am testing out Jot…

I am testing out Jott. listen

Powered by Jott

Too busy.

I’m moved in to my new apartment, but not unpacked. No where near unpacked. Fortunately, my bff is coming for the weekend and has told me to not be surprised if she just unpacks everything. She said she’ll draw me a map so I can find my stuff. I say, hey – go for it.

Unfortunately, the TWC guy (ugh) is coming this evening to hook up my cable and internet. And I have to at least rearrange the stuff before he arrives so he can do his job. Sigh.

……………..

Went to Wilmington for my grandmother’s 80th birthday. It was good, but I did sleep too much. Went to church with my grandmother for the first time in a long time. All I could think was that the choir needed some soul. They sounded okay, as far as having the notes down and everything, but the soloist was stiff and apparently terrified of doing a solo, and they just…needed some soul. Yikes.

……………

My therapist is on vacation next week, so I won’t see her until the week after. She told me to call her if I needed her, though. I love my therapist.

…………..

I have my sleep study finally this Friday night. I’m terrified that I’ll sleep soundly and the study will reveal nothing – which is pretty much what happened last time. I’m crossing my fingers for a bad night, so they’ll get a real sense of what’s going on. I hope I don’t have sleep apnea, because I really don’t want to have to wear a CPAP mask, but, if I can get good solid rest with a CPAP, then, whatever, bring it on. I have woken up around 3 a.m. for the past few nights and can’t go back to sleep for about an hour. It sucks. Please oh please let that happen Friday night!!!

I dread having the glue in my hair. And having to wash it about 5 times when I get back home Saturday morning to try to get the glue out. In case you’re wondering, this is what it looks like when you’re all hooked up for your sleep study.

Also, in case you’re wondering, I will NOT be posting any pictures of myself with the wires. Nope.

…………….

I’ve filled out my application for readmission to the Part-time Classroom Studies credit program through the Friday Center at UNC. Got my tuition waiver form signed. Now to get the final paperwork over to the Friday Center and get my PIN so I can register. CHEM 101 again – and, dammit, I’m going to finish the class this time.

…………….

On a happy note, this is what happens when people take the time to make a difference in an animal’s life.

Another Vick pit bull success story

……………

On a sad note, one of my favorite bloggers passed away over the weekend. Maya’s Granny – I will miss you and your wisdom.

Finally, the weekend.

God, how much I love weekends. I especially love them when I have nothing to do but rest, but I enjoy the ones where I’m busy too. Just never can seem to get enough rest, though. Sigh.

Anyway, this weekend is my grandmother’s 80th birthday (tomorrow – Flag Day). She still lives alone, bowls on a league in the fall/winter/spring, plays Bingo on Tuesday night and sings with her church choir. She says she never thought she’d make it this far.

Personally, I think she’s doing great. She seemed to be heading a bit downhill for a while there, but now she’s eating healthier (to try to get her blood sugar levels under control), just had cataract surgery that went beautifully and is scheduled for a knee replacement in a few weeks. The knee replacement worries me, but I feel good about the fact that she is going ahead with it – meaning she plans to be here for a while longer so as to make it worthwhile.

I hope I have enough of her genes to make it as far and as well as she has.

She doesn’t look 80, either. In my opinion.

…………….

All moved in. Can’t find a damn thing. Don’t really care because I’m exhausted. Gotta get my TVs set up at least because cable and internet are being hooked up on Monday night. Thought about just getting internet, but, the way the hated Time Warner Cable works it, it’s not worth paying for internet without getting cable.

I just wanna SLEEEEEEP.

I think I got maybe 2 hours of sleep last night, and they weren’t very sound ones. From about 3:30 to 5:30 this morning, I don’t remember looking at the clock. At 5:30, I got up, took the dogs out, got dressed, and went to the “old” apartment to finish packing up my shit. I *almost* finished before having to go back to the “new” apartment to shower and go to my doctor’s appointment.

Saw my gynecologist today. I swear that woman is a speed demon when it comes to annual exams. I love her. Told her about the recurring pain in my lower left part of my abdomen, right where my left ovary is, and she said that it could be some scar tissue or some endometriosis, but that if it’s better than it was when I got my Mirena IUD a year and a half ago, I may decide it’s not worth pursuing unless it gets worse again.

My pain is much better than before I got my IUD, as I was hurting a lot back then. I did have some severe cramping last week, but that was the first time in a while. When she felt my left ovary, though, it hurt, and it’s still twinging. But nothing major.

Anyway, my gyn (who was my best friend’s gyn – thanks, S, for recommending her!!!), is a wonderful wonderful doc. Really cares, very thorough, as gentle as she can be, given what’s she’s gotta do. What more can you ask for?

…..

More to write later about this whole move thing, but I don’t have internet at home right now, and I’m just tired, so it’ll have to wait. Suffice it to say that I’ll be glad once I’m settled, and that my little dogs are freaked out a bit right now. I think they think I left them in someone else’s house, cause when I got home from my appointment today, I thought Puddin’ was going to wiggle herself into a fit, she was so excited. My sweet baby girl. I don’t think Neville’s all that concerned though. He was a little bothered that I didn’t feed him late last night, because I couldn’t remember where I’d put his food (I did give him a bit of my chicken), but he was good once I fed him this morning.

Day Five behind me.

Took my last Levaquin pill (antibiotic) last night. It says that one of the possible side effects is “trouble sleeping.” Let’s hope that it is the reason I haven’t slept for the past five nights.

Last night was, I think, the worst yet. I don’t know that I ever actually went to sleep, though I did doze a bit off and on between 6 and 8 a.m. Had a terribly difficult time getting out of bed. Slight headache today, too, and my right shoulder is bugging me. God, I’m such an old whiny woman.