My weekend; or, "How often do I stop breathing when I sleep?"

I had an interesting weekend. It started with a sleep study.

For some time, I've known I had sleep apnea, a condition in which one stops breathing every so often when one is asleep. This prevents one from getting to the lowest layers of sleep, where one actually gets rest.

My father-in-law was diagnosed with severe apnea years ago, and has since slept wearing a mask attached to a CPAP machine. This machine forces air into your airways, keeping them open and preventing the apnea.

I have been resistant to the Darth-Vader-esque sleeping machine, and refused for years to get my apena diagnosed and treated. The main reason is, it seems once you start with the machine, you can't sleep without it. Vacation? Have to lug it with you. Camping? Forget about it.

A couple of months ago, I realized that I was getting more and more tired - nodding off in meetings at work, never having any energy, unable to drive more than a few blocks wihout getting drowsy. I went to see my doctor, worried there was something wrong with my thyroid. It took him all of 30 seconds to determine: "Nope, it's your apnea." I was scheduled to see their sleep disorder specialist, and given a little questionairre to fill out.

I filled out the questionairre and saw the sleep specialist. It took him about 30 seconds to say, "Yep, you have apnea; let's get you scheduled for a sleep study." He then explained how it would work: I would spend a night at the hospital all wired up. They would study the data to determine if for sure I had apnea. Then I would come back for another night a couple of weeks later and spend the night, while they fitted the mask and adjusted the machine to fit my needs. BUT, if the apnea was bad enough, they could fit me for the mask the first night. The doc was pretty confident mine was bad enough.

So, last Friday. I get off work, wait for my wife, she picks me up and we head to the hospital. We were rushing so I forgot I was supposed to eat dinner before I got there. As a result, I wound up eating in the hospital cafeteria (while my Judas of a wife went to one of my favorite Seattle restaurants and got my favorite dish). Since I went down there to eat, I was the last patient to get hooked up for the monitors, so my sleep study didn't start until 11pm.

A nice young lady came in and asked me to sit in a chair. I sat down and she started glueing and taping electrodes to my scalp, chest, etc. - I even had to run two pairs of wires through my shorts to connect to my legs. She told me I could turn the TV on if I wanted, as it would take about 20 minutes. I just smiled and sat there. I am used to haivng my wife shave my head every so often, and having to sit still for 15-20 minutes. It puts me in a Zen sort of state.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of what I looked like when she was done. Easily 20 wires were coming off me, all attached to a little blue box she plugged into the wall when she had me lay down. The wires were a nuisance as I tried to sleep, but they couldn't stop me from sleeping. I was too tired. Every time I woke up and needed to go to the bathroom, I had to sit up, say something out loud, and wait for her to come help me. She would unplug the little blue box from the wall and hang it, with all the wires, around my neck. When I was done, she would come back in the room and take the box off me and plug it back into the wall as I lay down.

There was no clock in the room, so I never knew what time it was or how far through the sleep study I was. This was strange for me, as I obsess over what time it is and normally check every time I wake up. Eventually, the tech came in and woke me, and said the study was done.

I was surprised to find that they had not put the mask on me that night as the sleep specialist had figured. I mentioned this to the tech, and she explained: the doctors don't let them put the mask on past a certain time (about 2am) and it was about that time when they had the data they needed to go ahead with it. So, since I forgot to eat dinner before I went, I got started too late and now I have to go back for the mask fitting/machine setting/etc. Oh well.

The tech asked me how I slept. I told her it was the most soundly I had slept in weeks. It must not have been good, because this idea horrified her.

Between writing stuff about the sleep study on good ol' Facebook, and talking about it at the BBQ/Poker game I attended the next day, I found out that way more of my friends have CPAP machines then I was aware of. And they all wanted to know one thing: How many times did you quite breathing?

This seems to be a sort of badge of honor among those with sleep apnea (apneacs?) - how fucked up your breathing is makes you a more badass case.

Alas, the tech did not tell me how often I quit breathing, so I have no such badge.

Soon, I shall have my CPAP that I have dreaded all this time. But if it lets me sleep, and not be this tired all the time, I welcome it at this point.