Have you ever gone for a sleep study before?

If you haven’t and you are facing a sleep study in the near future…I will pray for you.  I’d like to say I’m joking but the fact of that matter is that I recently had a sleep study and it was likely the worst sleep I have ever had in my entire life.  Period.  As a part of the process for my referral to weight loss surgery I had to go get a sleep study done – this was being done to rule out sleep apnea which can cause surgical complications related to the anesthetic. I got the call just a few days after my referral to the sleep centre (which was surprising based on the weight times for some sleep clinics in the city) and they asked me to come in the following day for a sleep test.  I was provided with a lot of instructions like to arrive at 830pm, do not bring my own pillow, and refrain from drinking caffeine the day of the study…but none of them prepared me for the night that was about to transpire.

I arrived at the sleep centre on time and was quickly introduced to my technician who took me around the centre for the tour.  The Sleep Centre was quite large and could sleep 9 people all in private rooms, each technician responsible for monitoring 3 patients each.  There was a television room, bathrooms, showers, a set-up room, rooms where all of the computers and surveillance took place, and then the bedrooms.  “Jing” the kind technician I was assigned too showed me to my room and I stood in the door just kind of blinking for a minute – we had just toured the entire Sleep Centre and every room had a double or queen sized bed but the room I was in had a single bed – A SINGLE bed…not even a twin bed. I stood there scratching my head for a minute wondering how the hell I was going to smush my morbidly obese self into a bed that wasn’t even as tall as I was…never mind the width.  I guess Jing had no clue what I was thinking because she quickly ushered me to get into my pajamas so that she could get me “all hooked up and ready to go”.  I closed the door as Jing left, got changed, and laid down on the bed for a moment – I could fit width wise but barely – one quick movement in either direction would surely send me tumbling to the floor…but the worst was that my feet hung over the bottom of the bed – EPIC.  I just shook my head and sighed – why had they chosen to put me in this room?  All of the other people at the clinic were barely overweight…nevermind mordibly obese and referred through the Bariatric Centre whom they frequently deal with.  I decided to just make the best of it at that moment and opened to door to let Jing in to do the work she needed to do.  It took about 20 minutes to get me all hooked up with what seemed like a million wires coming from my face, head, and legs – plus the two bands that had to go around my abdomen and chest and then the 2 tubes that had to go around my face and into my nose like oxygen prongs would – I looked at myself horrified in the mirror and couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of me.  Jing asked me what time I thought I’d fall asleep and I felt it would be around 11pm; she left me to read in my room and came back when it was time for “lights out”.  After laying in the bed for an hour I decided I needed to say something about the size of the bed and wondered to Jing how they had made the decision that I would be in this bedroom and she reflected that she didn’t understand it, that the room was usually reserved for smaller patients or teens, and that it is the day time appointment people who decide who goes where – I guess I can’t blame Jing – poor girl…she actually felt bad for me.

It took me a while to fall asleep – about 45 minutes according to the doctor who analyzed my sleep study and through the night I tossed and turned quite horribly and I was sure that I had hardly slept when Jing came to wake me up at 6:45 am like I had asked (I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could).  I filled out the “how do you feel after your sleep” questionnaire and an evaluation of the clinic where I noted and expressed frustration over the size of the bed and then I was out of there as fast as my feet could carry me; they told me it would take about 2-3 days for the doctor’s office to follow up with me.

The doctor’s office just as Jing had told me, called about 3 days later with an appointment (about 2 weeks later) for me to see the doctor.  I suddenly felt nervous!  I didn’t want to be told that I had sleep apnea but about 8 years ago I was told that I did have sleep apnea so I was prepared to hear that I did and stressed about the possibility of sleeping with a CPAP machine again after all of this time without it (I never found it helpful and never felt rested after sleeping with it).  I arrived and met with the doctor and his exact words were “I have great news for you Melissa!  You do not have sleep apnea and will not require treatment”.

BEST

NEWS

I’VE

HEARD

IN

A

LONG

WHILE!!

Apparently I slept for a total of almost 5 hours and it took me 45 minutes to fall asleep.  During the night I was awake at one point for a period of 1 hour which I knew about…it was around 430 in the morning when I needed to go to the bathroom and didn’t want to bother the tech to get me all unhooked – eventually she came in, I relieved my bladder, and I was hooked back up and fell back asleep.  During that night I had a few very short times where I held my breath while sleeping but apparently this is normal and no indicative of Sleep Apnea that requires treatment – my oxygen levels were perfect all night long!  Woohoo! I was really happy to hear this news and as it turns out the doctor provided me with a nice surprise and some good news before I left but that is a whole different blog post!