Well, as some of you know, last Monday night I had the oh so delightful task of taking part in a sleep study so that I can finally put to rest the question of whether or not I truly do have sleep apnea or some other sleep disorder. Sounds like a good, solid plan right? Well you know what they say about where a road paved with good intentions leads...
Anyway, all was well when I arrived and found that my sleep tech was a youngish black woman with whom I could joke around with and share memories of watching In Living Color back in the day, until it came time to hit the sheets. Listen closely because here is where I start to get slightly pissed about the turn of events...
Before I go any further I should preface all of this by saying that I am one of those people who need certain elements in place in order for me to go to sleep. These are as follows: Background noise (I prefer the TV on CNN), A fair amount of time in the bed with my eyes closed reflecting on the days events, the ability to move around freely and lay on both of my sides until I fall asleep, and familiar surroundings, or in the event that any of the previous are not readily available I should be slightly intoxicated instead.
So, with all that said, to put it simply... NONE OF THOSE THINGS WERE PRESENT IN THE SLEEP LAB! Well, other than my pillow which I brought with me since they said to. So needless to say I was really doubting my ability to fall asleep esp. since when I get anxious about something I have a hell of a hard time sleeping in normal conditions. Well even with a god-zillion probes attached to me (check out this woman here to get an idea of what I looked like) I did fall asleep... for 30 mins!
That's right my friendly, In Living Color-loving, sleep tech came in to adjust one of my many probes and woke my hard-to-fall-asleep-ass up. This is where it begins to get not so pretty... I laid there for an hour and could not fall back asleep even though I tried my damnedest because, God knows, I didn't want to have to come back and get my probe on another night. Well, after an hour she came over the intercom (Did I mention that aside from the god-zillion probes that she was also watching me from the other room with a night vision video camera and monitoring the sound with the intercom constantly?) and she said, "Mr. Jarvis if you can't fall asleep soon I am going to have to scrap the study and reschedule it because we are not going to be able to monitor a full six hrs. of sleep."
Well you all see where this is going by now. I was promptly evicted from the sleep study after about 30 mins. of paperwork, getting dressed, finding out that my Dr. could and should have given me something to help me sleep (she suggested Ambien), and talking with the tech about how angry I was at myself for not being able to sleep (little did she know I was also slightly pissed at her for waking me up). All in all it was a hellish experience that I am going to have to face again in the near future although this time, after my follow-up doctor's apt. on Monday, I will be armed with some good sleep meds before I step foot in that sleep lab.
BTW, did I mention the fact that I asked my doctor for something to help me sleep when I went for the study when they suggested that I have it done and they told me I would be fine without it? Mmm yea... that's where I get a little pissed.
Sleep well & stay tuned everybody...
+Jacob