Post Overnight in the Sleep Lab

Its been way past due.

The tech asked me as he wired me up.. and I do mean wired me up. What brings you here tonight?

I told him.. My last sleep study was 8 years ago. He replied you are about 6 years late in getting this done.. yep

I reported in to the sleep center in a strip mall setting at 8:30 as requested. The tech who was working the test on me was there and allowed me to get into my pajamas.

The bed was a good firm bed. There are no windows in that room. A small (12 flat screen) TV was in the upper corner. It had all the standard channels of a cable system.. about 90. Two other patients were also at the center last night. One was doing an awakeness study,on his way home at midnight,and the other, who arrived after me was doing the same study as mine.

The tech took me into a room and attached about 8 wires to my head... 6 of which were in my scalp, a couple on my face and various sensors on down the body to a couple in my legs on each side. All wires were connected to a "block" and then I carried the "block" down to bed. He hooked me in and I watched T.V.. for an hour or so.

He came in and set me up with a couple of sleep "exercises" to calibrate the sensors.. Look up to the ceiling for 2minutes. Blink your eyes 5 times move your eyes left to right 5 times. Breathe from your mouth, breathe from your nose.... on and on. Each test measured the input for a particular sensor.

The first part of the sleep test was "diagnostic" you sleep without the cpap machine. This was between 10 and midnight. Then the tech comes in and made sure that the mask got on. He started the pressure at 4 and then watched the numbers on my sensors to find the best number for my machine to work.

It was all over at 5am. Not too far from my normal during the week get up time. He went through all the bed checks again and took of all the gear back to the set up room.

In the mean time, Sue has a hard time with me out of the house at night. She did okay last night. She said that she did an "allnighter".. but she often does that when she has a good book to read.

I didn't get all my hours with my machine.. so this morning I was a little sleep and not the most accurate in the world with this blog entry. I will recover.

Pat