My Hospital Stay

Sorry, I meant to take pictures during my recent, brief hospitalization, but I forgot.

I just checked out this morning from my first stay in a stateside hospital.

Thats right - I spent the night in the hospital and none of you came to see me.

Don't feel bad, though. It's better that you didn't.

I went directly to the sleep center, where I had an appointment for a sleep study, and where I was redirected to the registration desk.

I checked in to Woodland Memorial Hospital at about 7 last night for a sleep study. I arrived to find a Jessica, a beleaguered, but friendly, hospital receptionist trying to cover the lunch-break of the hospital operator and find three different obstetricians to deliver or consult on four different deliveries, reroute patients from the emergency room to the intensive care unit, and track down a back-up X-ray technician to help the on-duty X-ray tech already overrun with patients.

Jessica eventually managed to get me checked in and sent me back upstairs to the sleep center, where my polysomnograph technician, Matt, explained the routine to me, had me fill out some forms and watch a video, hooked me up to more than a dozen different sensors, had me try out a couple of different CPAP masks in case I needed to be fitted with one in the middle of the night, and sent me to bed. (My sleep number is 100.)

I tossed and I turned. I listened to Matt greet and explain the routine to another patient whose appointment was an hour later than mine. I fell asleep. I woke up. I fell asleep. I woke up and called Matt in to disconnect me from the machine so I could use the restroom. I fell asleep. I woke up. Matt came in to reconnect a sensor I had removed in my sleep, but I assumed that morning had already come and that I had to get up. I asked "What time is it, anyway?"

"Uh. . . about three."

"Sweet!" I went back to sleep, and when Matt came in again two hours later, it was because it was time for me to get up. He disconnected me from the sensor array. He had me fill out a survey about the previous night's sleep, and I was able to shower there at the sleep center and wash from my hair and beard the glue out that had held the various sensors in place.

All in all, it was a fairly restless night's sleep and I think that I was right to take today off of work, despite the extra work that creates, but I look forward to learning the results of the study.

Will I have one of the eighty different known sleep disorders?

I'll find out in four weeks.