Last night I had a scheduled sleepover with Mayo Clinic for a long-awaited sleep study. I arrived in a tizzy at the Basso Building on the West Campus of Mayo Clinic with two giant bags, a body pillow, and a fuzzy Ugg blanket. Along with a full day of school orientation for the kiddos, remote work, household chores and to top it off a NAMI Jacksonville 2 hour board meeting that evening, I was ready for a little rest and relaxation. I called my husband and my best friend to wish me luck as I proceeded to walk into the sleep clinic. Paige wished me well and also stated for the record that she has been attempting to get someone to acknowledge my shitty sleep patterns for 20 years of friendship. Lately, my sleep has been rather spotty and unreliable as I am first and foremost a self-proclaimed mouth breather. I literally cannot shut my mouth. Thanks to a childhood of sucking my index finger until the tender age of 8 years old, I have a jaw offset, that doesn’t exactly meet. I have known my entire life that my jaw would be or might cause an issue later on. Add to the mix my increased weight and voila, I have a severe case of recently diagnosed sleep apnea.
I was scheduled for an overnight sleep study, as a step necessary with Mayo Clinic to get my sleep in order, but also as a possible step forwards in Bariatric surgery process. After my initial sleep study with an at-home pulse-Ox, my nurse practitioner halted the process as the initial result showed severe disruption in my oxygen levels and breathing. After an initial sleep consult last week, and a negative covid test they quickly scheduled my study overnight.
Last night I was escorted to a fancy large hotel-esque suite. I offloaded my things, dressed in my comfy FSU tshirt and pj pants to prepare for sleep. I turned on my Monday night guilty pleasure, The Bachelorette, to zone out. The nurse came in shortly after I was settled and hooked me up to electrodes from head to foot. I was covered in monitors and felt nervous but also excited to finally have a consensus of what was causing my disrupted sleep patterns. As I prepared to be monitored by camera, mic and monitors, I took a small dose of Klonopin to calm down my nerves. The medicine did what it is supposed to do. By 10pm I turned off the television and fell asleep.
Somewhere a couple hours later, I’d imagine they were quite impressed with my snoring, lack of oxygen or my innate ability to awake myself. The nurse came back into the room to hook my up to the C-Pap machine. They had explained earlier once they had gathered enough data, they would hook me up to the machine if necessary.
Those first moments of the nurse holding this blowing machine up to my face, I immediately tried to resist panicking. She asked me to breathe normally. Thinking back I don’t know how I survived the night with that machine on my face. I did, and apparently slept a couple more hours uninterrupted with the aid of the C-Pap machine.
3:15am—Between those first moments and getting accustomed to the machine, I laid awake adjusting to it for at least an hour. I tried my best to breathe in and out, sometimes having to verbally tell my brain to breathe. I tried with every ounce of myself to resist my temptation to rip off the headgear and masked attached to my nose and mouth. The hose protruding from my face and the red light finger monitor seemed to annoy me more and more as I lie awake resisting my fight or flight responses and doing whatever I could to focus on breathing. Every time I adjusted my face by changing the elevation of my pillows, or turning uncomfortably to my reliable left side, the mask slipped slightly off my upper portion of my nose, next to my left eye. As a result pockets of air continued to seep out as I tried and tried to ignore it.
6:00am—The nurse awoke me, from what seemed like a dream. Truth be told, I do not recall the last time I dreamed, nor do I have any recollection of a good nights restful sleep in months on end. For the first time, even though I maybe slept soundly for about 3 hours, I feel rested today. I have more energy, and generally less irritable as well. I went about my morning routine, showered, dressed, had some coffee and light breakfast at the swanky Sleep suite here at Mayo. It is now about an hour shy of my appointed time with the follow-up Sleep physician that I am scheduled to see at 10:45am. Even with the sleep last night, with the assistance of the C-Pap, I can honestly say I feel like a different person. I am not groggy as I usually am after my initial cup of coffee, I am not in a daze or struggling to stay awake. I feel human and dare I say more my bouncy, bubbly self.
The Seascapechronicles 