Sleeping Cutie

I'm cute.  I'm MUCH cuter when I am well-rested. So, if you are new to me and my blog, I will become increasingly attractive to you over the next few months. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I have begun to sleep.  Well, I might add.

Long story short, I have not slept well in about a year.  After a sleep study in which I slept at the hospital hooked up to machines while a stranger watched my every move on video, I finally got the results of that study:
I do NOT have sleep apnea.  This is great!  However, I still don't sleep well. This is bad.

So, after hemming and hawing, my doctor, Dr F (my Sleep Medicine Doctor) said she could give me some medication to try. These are what she recommended:

• Something based on Melatonin-this is a fat NO, due to my creepy realistic dreams.  Un uh. 
• Ambien and Lunesta. These are FOR sleep, and only sleep. I'm game, but all the horror stories about sleep-eating, sleep-driving, and sleep-shopping have Sky King a bit wary.  He's rightfully cautious, because of my "issues" with Nordstrom. But I sure would look great in some new boots after sleep-shopping---alas, we all know that's a treacherous path to go down.
• The next group are a group of older meds for anxiety-Sign me up, right?  They tend to make you sleepy, so right before bed is perfect.  They work with the Cymbalta for the Fibro pain, also fab.  So I get a script for Mirazapine.  

I slept!  Albeit, the night before a major cognitive function test  to address my memory issues which could have been planned better.
But, 4 days later, I am still sleeping!

:::cue angels and harp music:::

I feel good when I wake, but am having a hard time wanting to get up. Maybe it is catching up on a year's worth of good sleep? Maybe the med is too strong?  I'm going to give it a couple weeks, then make a firm assessment.


Yay, Sleep!

Nuttier Than Squirrel Poop

Recently, I had a neurological evaluation to address my concerns about my memory loss and generalized ditziness.  It was a 3 hour tour process, and was just as perilous as the journey the Gilligan, the Skipper and their passengers took.  Except mine ended with a search for my car in the parking garage, rather than dealing with some schmuck trying to make a radio out of a coconut. And I didn't have a grass skirt on.

When I got there, I could only sit around shooting birds into the air, trying to smash rotten egg-stealing piggies.  This is because UC Davis is very serious about their "no cell phone" policy, and make it so that anyone who enters the building not only does not have service, but they take it one step further.  Somehow the tech people at UC Davis have made it so that your phone roams at some ridiculous rate, depleting battery life.  I am on to their tricks though, and I put my phone to "airplane mode".  Suck it, UC Regents.

After annihilating some piggies, I get called.  I go on back, and sit in a new chair, set to destroy more piggies. Two women come in, and I cease the destruction, in favor of good manners.  Those Angry Birds will have to wait.

The women turn out to be the main doctor, and a person working on her residency-I can't recall her name....HA!!!  I'm there for memory problems and I CAN'T RECALL HER NAME!!!  No? Never mind.  I will call her Alicia.
So Dr. F and Alicia sit down and tell me what to expect, and we talk at length about what I think the problem is.  I tell them about fibro fog (a condition that may or may not have medical basis where people with fibromyalgia act as if they are complete morons and/or lunatics, which SOMETIMES is different from how they normally act.  Look it up.).  We then go on to what my concerns are.
They are:
I forget the word I am trying to say, for every day items. For instance, I might say, "You know, one of those doors that are see-through, used to keep bugs out?"  A Screen.  I know, now.  But usually, I can't remember these stupid little words.  The other thing I can't remember is things like taking my medications, getting to appointments, paying bills on time.  I have made many accommodations, but still make errors, and I would like it all to stop, thank you very much.

We take a short potty break, and only Alicia comes back, to do the pen-and-paper test portion.
The Q and A begins and partway through, I start to get a wee bit paranoid.  She asks how my driving is, whether I get lost, whether I have accidents or near-misses (near-hits?) and whether I think of hurting myself or others -this is where I remember NOT to joke about strangling my children-they actually don't have the sense of humor you would expect about that kind of stuff. But the anxiety builds---First, what if I answer something wrong, and it means something worse is wrong than the things I already know? What if they decide, because of my answers, that I am unfit to drive or raise children or work with kids or something else I haven't even thought of?????? Holy Shit!!!!!!!

Maybe I forgot to mention I started a new medication yesterday?

Lemme back up---the other day, I went in for the Sleep Study Follow Up.  After much discussion, we decided to try a sleep med that will work with Cymbalta to help me sleep but also reduce my anxiety.  Because the Cymbalta is great for pain, but my anxiety has gotten worse.  Nice for an antidepressant to do that, isn't it? So I got something, and tried it for the first time the night before the Neuro test.  Dumb of me, turns out.  Because it causes some fogginess in me, at least the first night, and now I'm in the middle of a test that will tell people if I am a headcase or not.  Brilliant. And I can't seem to think clearly, and my mind is racing, and I am getting too hot in this tiny little room. 

So after I have an internal panic attack that I may just get carried off my men in white coats if my answers are wrong, we move forward with the formal testing.  It's  a series of tests that are a lot like the assessment we do on the children in my child care center-take these blocks to make this picture; which figures make up this other figure; repeat this list of things; repeat this story to me, verbatim; what are these objects' names; what was that first list of things; which figure is repeated in this line; what is the circumference of the earth at the equator (seriously---- It's 24.9 thousand miles---I totally just got my $20 copay's worth); who was Mahatma Gandhi; what was that list of words; what is the next card in the pattern.  VERY stressful.  Not because I didn't like the test, per se. It was more that, "if I get something wrong, maybe it means something I don't even know about yet is wrong with me" kind of stress.  Yes, I think things like that.  No, I don't need shock therapy. Actually, maybe that will be their recommendation.....

The fun part of all this is this: I get to wait 4 weeks for the results.

  I spewed my unhappiness with the process to a few close friends.

Me: Grrr
Husband: You're funny.  When you left, were they all, "see you in 4 weeks" or more "see you in 4 weeks, but be careful around X, because you tested weird in that area".
Me: The first one.
Him: Hmm. Sounds like a "pass" to me.

Me: So I took a crazy test.
Pal: How did it go?
Me: I don't know, I have to wait 4 weeks.
Pal: But, they let you leave?
Me: Yeah.
Pal: You must not be as crazy as you thought, or they wouldn't have let you leave.
Me: Good point.


All in all, I am not immediately dying, nor am I an immediate threat to myself or others. Goes to show what you know.  Maybe I should have gotten that in writing?

that's one for the "Win" column, dontcha think?


UPDATE: Oh, and did I tell you my long  8 month quest for life insurance hinges on the results? No stress here. Nope.

Pick-a-Stalker Program

As part of UC Davis' Pick-a-Stalker Program, I get to pick the people that will watch me sleep. It's all part of a program designed to make creeps mainstreamed into normal society, and the premise is that, if we know the people that will be creeping us out, maybe they will be less creepy.

Or, I am going to the hospital for a Sleep Study tonight. At this point, I have lost track, because I am soooo flipping tired.

You see, I, along with my fellow spoonies, don't sleep well.  I look at the clock approximately 10 times per night.  So, I turned the clock.  Now I wake 10 times a night, but I have no idea when I wake, because the clock is turned.  

I have covered the alarm system keypad with black paper.  I flip my cell phone over so that the blinking "someone sent you an email" light does not wake me (it used to).  I make sure the room is as dark as possible, and I do everything I can to have a good night's sleep. But I don't.  They finally sent me to a neurologist, who got to hear my life story in 20 minutes, and then decided maybe a sleep study would be a good tool to figure out why I don't sleep. all because I said I snore.  I also said that I grind my teeth, smack my mouth, and talk in my sleep, but whatevs. The snoring is the issue, in case I have apnea.

So, let me get this straight-I don't sleep well.  So I go on down to the local germ-infested hospital, park in a large structure that costs money, pay a co-pay to some overworked imbecile, change into my "jammies" which I normally don't wear, hook up to a ton of wires and circle thingies, and sleep in a strange bed in a strange room, while people watch me from another room through the security-type cameras.  Sounds relaxing, right? 

I just hope the intercoms are working right so that I get to hear "code blue-room 2645, stat" all night-it's like a bonus, where I get to pretend that I am living on the set of "House" for the night.  Now if only I could have some strange health problems that no one can figure out....oh, wait....

To combat my sleep problems, I have tried numerous things.

• I bought a Sleep Number bed-truly one of the most remarkable inventions of the 21st century, just after toilet paper and Nordstrom.  
• I covered everything that emits light in my room
• I take relaxing herbs at bedtime
• I tried Melatonin, a supplement that helps adjust the circadian clock in your body when it is out of whack.

Let's pause for a moment to talk about melatonin.   I have taken it off and on, with mixed reviews.  I DO seem to sleep better.  But.  And this is a big butt---my dreams when I take it are extremely vivid, realistic and memorable.

For instance, this morning I woke up, and my reality seemed to be:
I had just met my husband's family for the first time, and they were a very large black family.  They were very inviting, but they were a little hesitant about my history in the juvenile detention facility. You can't blame them, but they didn't want to hear my story about why I had spent most of my youth in Juvie.  This is why...
When I was younger, I was helping a friend walk to the car repair place.  It was night, and there weren't any street lights in the area of town we were in.  Eventually, we lost track of each other, and I wandered down a street, looking for open repair shops. I finally found one, but my friend was not there. I asked around, and a woman that ran the counter had seen her further down the road, and she walked me down to where she saw her go.  Apparently, my friend (who looks like a friend I had in high school) had decided to spend the night in a tree, nestled in the branches.  I tried to join her, but I was concerned about the quality of sleep I would get, so I encouraged her to jump down so we could find another place to stay.  Just then, there seemed to be a party going on in a back yard, so we joined them.  They were all very nice to us, being new to the area.  Then, a group of stereotypical-looking thugs showed up, who also turned out to be remarkably nice.
This is where things get ugly.  All of a sudden, there is a fight and some shooting-I remember two different weapons being fired.  One of the "thugs" gave me a large stack of twenties, and sent me on my way.
Things get fuzzy at this point, and next thing I know, I am awake in a juvenile facility.  I have a small cubby hole with a bed and a triangular shelf for my belongings.  My cell phone and some old donuts are my possessions.  I am not allowed to have a phone charger, though so things are rough, and I have to turn the phone off after each text. Also, the facility seems to be in the middle of some sort of race war, and my fellow pals are getting picked off by people on the other side of the fence.
I bide my time on my little cubby, and try to get some sleep. I know that I have been here for a long time, but I'm not sure how long.
All of a sudden, my real mother barges in and throws her crazy child on me.  We gather up my stuff including a bucket of paint, and take off.
They take me to a restaurant, where I try in vain to get gluten-free pot stickers.  My "real" mom had abandoned me many years before, and wants to get to know her daughter, but she isn't very nice. She even takes my wrapper-less pot sticker.  Somehow, I ditch her, along with my child (a 2-year-old Princess) that has just appeared, in search of this guy named Mike that raised me.
Along the way, I lose my child, but don't seem to notice. I then get caught up with some bad people again, and sneak into a house for protection. After the bad people go away, I manage to find my way to a family dinner at my husband's family's home. They are all very nice, and serve a good meal.  I keep nudging my husband, though because it has been a long day and I am tired.  Finally, we leave, and I can't find my cell phone.  Luckily, I remember that I have not upgraded yet, so I plan to call Verizon as soon as I get home to get the new Droid X2, and I remember hoping I had updated my backup on the computer recently, because I know I have to call in my Girl Scout cookie order soon, and I can't do it without all the information stored in my phone.


Yep, 12 hours later, this is how vivid my dreams are.

No thank you-I'll take my chances with Ambien, thankyouverymuch.  I hear people do crazy things like sleep-eat and sleep-shop while on it.  At least now, I will get wonderful boots by mail randomly.  It will be like Christmas every few weeks!

Wish me luck-G'Night!