Sleep Study II

So, since I've been taking the dopamine for my periodic limb movement, Shel and I have both been sleeping much better, and Shel tells me that she no longer hears me stop breathing - ever. Still, the initial diagnosis was of both of periodic limb movement disorder and sleep apnea, so I last night I went in for a second sleep study and remembered to take my camera. Meet Melissa. She's works nights at the hospital's registration desk and reports that her husband snores a lot, but that they still haven't gotten a sleep study scheduled for him yet.

I had a different polysomnograph technician this time. I guess it was Matt's night off, so Mohammad, who works full-time at another sleep lab and fills in for Matt when he isn't there got me set up and monitored my sleep and also served as my photographic assistant for this entry.

While we talked about the pros and cons of polysomnography as a career, Mohammad plastered a bunch of wires and sensors on me to monitor breathing, oxygen saturation, limb movement and brain waves. To do this, he used an adhesive paste. I didn't think to ask what this paste was made of and Mohammad probably doesn't know, but I think that it's probably equal parts beeswax and sovereign glue. I had Shel cut my hair the other day, but the beard still had plenty of length to grab.

Then, the piece de resistance: the CPAP mask, which blows air down my gullet all night to keep the airway inflated and open. Let me tell you, if the pressure is high enough, it feels like having one's eyes shoved out of their head from behind.

Boy, what a miserable night's sleep I had! Every time I adjusted, I'd spring a leak in the mask and it would start blowing on my eye or on my lip. These leaks were significant enough that Mohammad thought that I had my mouth open and threatened to come in an put a chinstrap on me to keep my mouth closed. Wearing the CPAP mask on meant I was able to sleep on my back - something I normally avoid to minimize snoring, but unfortunately it also meant that I couldn't sleep in any other position. The jury's still out, and by all reports it takes quite a bit of getting used to to before a person feels comfortable wearing the mask, but I'm starting to think I might not be completely sold on CPAP. Obviously, if the apnea is still a problem, I'll adjust and use the thing, but from what Shel says, the apnea may have been primarily caused by the periodic limb movement. My mother-in-law is worried about me building a dopamine resistance as sometimes happens with Parkinson's patients, but for now, I'm just stoked to feel rested in the morning and making it through the day without a nap or a breakdown.

The gas gauge was on empty last night when I drove to
Woodland, so Ithought I'd fill up before I tried to get home. The petroleum fairies came in the night and added a little fuel, but I thought that it might be nice to have a full tank, literally and figuratively and stopped by AM/PM for hot chocolate and a donut. $45 later, I was back on my way.

I'll post some more pictures later, of the ongoing bathroom remodel and my lovable dogs now that I've purged my camera onto the computer.

In the meantime, sleep well.

I Love Reuters

They have the best stories: the thieves who tried to rob a bar hosting a biker club meeting and the baby born into and through a toilet on a train to be picked after Mom stopped the train and went back for her baby are just the two I saw today. They're always reporting stuff like that.

I recognize the value of a public forum for the announcement of public events like marriages, births, land sales, and bankruptcies, and I get that there are thing we need to know for pragmatic reasons: Baghdad is not a great tourist trap right now, etc.

What I don't understand is the type of alarmist reporting that often preoccupies American reporting.

Whee! It my birthday!

So, I was going to blog this morning about syntax and a recent NEA message indicating that some public school district somewhere will soon begin separating students by gender despite parent protest - I'm interested not by the issue or the pedagogical implications or even the controversy as I am by use of the word "gender" when the word intended, "sex," is too laden with naughty overtones. Nathan Lane, Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson, Brett Michaels, The-artist-again-known-as-Prince, Carson Daily, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Woody Allen and I all perform very different genders, but are all of the same sex.

I didn't, though, because I had to go to Woodland to visit the head shrinker. As expected, Cymbalta discontinuation was the root of my dysphoric vertigo/nausea/tinnitus. I got a scrip for a taper-down dose of the Cymbalta and other cool scrips, too, but the cool thing is that I feel human again. I even helped a little with demolitions today in the bathroom.

I'll post some "during" pictures later since I was too late to capture a "before" shot, but the long and short version is that we tore the cabinets out of the bathroom today, took down the mirror and the vanity ligh, pulled out the toilet and scraped and washed the crud off the walls in preparation to repaint, lay down tile, possibly re-plumb the sink, and put in new cabinets. When we're done, it will be much improved.

Finally, as we were working (okay, Shel was working. I was watching), FedEx showed up with the coolest birthday present EVAH! Trixie is a total BADASS and this gift is so cool that I'm in doubt as to whether it's even appropriate for me to explicate here what I got. I am so fully stoked! While the market value is of tertiary importance at best to me, it does give you a clue, so I will say that I estimate the retail value of this gift at about $520!

Shel and I just got back from the grocer and she's making her awesome spaghetti (okay, cellantani ragu) and her awesomer garlic bread, and I'm going to install the full version of WoW on my computer and begin spending some time geeking out.

Withdrawals

I'm suffering from withdrawals, or "discontinuation syndrome."

I switched anti-depressant meds. I was taking Cymbalta, a combination seratonin- and norepinephrine-reuptake inhibitor. Because it wasn't cutting it, I've recently switched to Wellbutrin, which is a norepinephrine- and dopamine-reuptake inhibitor. The timing is fairly unscientific, as I just started taking the med for the periodic limb movement disorder, so it's hard to sort out various impacts of various pharmaceuticals, but I need to get all of this sorted out before my coverage expires at the end of March.

Anyway, as I'm learning is characteristic of discontinuing a seratonin-reuptake inhibitor, I have this nearly perpetual lightheadedness, low-grade nausea, and a throbbing vertigo similar to the severe dehydration one might associate with acute inebriation. It's fine as long as I'm lying down and not moving, but it sucks while I'm upright and moving about.

Basically, it only sucks while I'm awake.

That's not what this post is really about though.

I've recently started playing the MMORPG World of Warcraft with a ten-day trial account. The game is lot of fun and helps pacify my long-aching desire to play D&D again. Shel even tried it and enjoys it.

That trial account has expired. I really can't justify buying a video game, especially one which requires a monthly subscription, while I'm unemployed, but a dear friend (the chief influence in getting me to try the game in the first place) has sent me a copy of the game via snail mail for my upcoming birthday. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of this package.

I know it's Sunday, but maybe USPS will make an exception and deliver today. I suppose it's worth the swimming, pulsing nausea to go out and check the mail to see if there has been a total breech of normal policy and the letter carrier will find a way to wedge the software and manuals in the little mailbox.

or not

Sleep

My wife has a sleep disorder: me.

As I wrote about recently, I don't sleep well at night and my primary care physician referred me to a sleep specialist who conducted an overnight sleep study to analyze my sleep patterns. I had a follow-up visit with this sleep specialist yesterday and learned that I in fact have two sleep disorders: like many people, I have sleep apnea, an intermittent interruption of breathing while I sleep. While I'm not consciously aware of it, this cessation of breathing causes me to wake up, keeping me from entering into, and staying in, the dreaming, restful period of sleep.

We've all heard people snore, and the fact is that most people can get used to someone else's snoring and sleep through the noise. My snoring isn't what keeps Shel up at night. I toss and turn throughout the night, flopping my limbs, twitching and flailing. Anyone who has ever had a "falling dream," one in which they experience a sudden and unexpected sensation of falling, knows that the normal response is to jerk all of ones limbs upward as though to catch themself. Shel says that this is the best comparison for the movement that I exhibit all night long, every night. This is called periodic limb movement disorder. Imagine for a moment what it's like to try to sleep while somebody bounces on the bed.

The doctor, when reviewing the results of my sleep study, said "This is the fun part: how many times do you think you woke up during the night?"

Before I tell you what my answer to him was, I'll ask you, my readers, to ask yourself how many times you wake up during the average night.

Knowing that my estimate would be low, I said "Three," since I remember waking up three times during the study. It turns out that while I slept on my back, I woke up an average of 55 times per hour. When I wasn't on my back, I only woke up an average of 7.5 times per hour.

I'm going back for another sleep study next week, this time wearing a cpap machine while I sleep to address the snoring

In the meantime, the doctor started me on a drug which is basically a proto-dopamine which my body needs to produce the dopamine that will keep me from twitching. I never expect any drug to perfectly effective, and certainly not right away, but last night was the first time I took this stuff and Shel reports that I didn't twitch at all last night, moving only in the way that people normally do when they sleep, and that my snoring was even reduced dramatically.

The real bonus in all this for me (other than not keeping Shel awake all night) is that I think I feel more rested today than I normally do. I haven't had a nap today and I don't feel like I need one, and that's unusual.

A great start to a new future? Maybe. I'll keep you posted.

Cloche de Beurre

This is neither the first nor, I am sure, the last time I will reference Interesting thing of the Day, a cool site I visit regularly. Joe Kissel has discovered and written about yet another elegant solution to a common problem. He and his wife also write about cool stuff that I don't take enough time considering.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day

For those of you who have not stopped to consider the beauty and romance of this special day, please check out this link. Thanks, Trixie.

Old Glory Insurance

Denice

My dear friend Denice, a lifelong friend of Shel's, wrote me a long, thoughtful, and encouraging email dissuading me from leaving teaching asking for a token mention here - just a sentence, just a phrase, but she deserves more. She deserves her own blog, her own web-ring.
Thanks, Denice.

The Latest News

Various people have told me for many years now that they thought I would make a good teacher - a very flattering remark, but one I still think was meant sincerely.

I didn't.

I made a lousy teacher. What I've discovered is that the profession of teaching, at least in my brief experience, has less to do with actually teaching people stuff they want to learn or which the teacher wants to teach than one might expect, and more to do with a whole lot of other bullshit.

As my regular readers know, I was teaching at a middle school in the Sacramento area this school year. Now I'm not. I resigned last Friday. It sounds reckless when it's put that way, but the truth is that the axe was already falling and I got out just before it found purchase. Officially, I have "left to pursue another opportunity." Actually, as glad as I am to be out of there, I'm still looking for that other opportunity.

I really didn't like teaching middle school. I liked teaching high school and I'm sure that if I'm to continue teaching, it will be at that level. The thing is that for as crappy as the kids could be sometimes, they weren't the problem. The problem was a sixty-hour work-week for two grand a month. The problem was the lockstep curriculum design. The problem was my fuckhead administrator. (by the way, Blogspot's internal spell check thinks that fuckhead is misspelled [and "Blogspot" and spellcheck too] but I double-checked and it's [they're] right).

I enjoy teaching the kids stuff that they need to know when they enjoy learning it, but, c'mon, who doesn't enjoy that, right? The kids at a middle school need baby-sitting as much as they need instruction, and that's a problem for me. I don't want to work as a babysitter. Either behave as you're supposed to or go the fuck home and ask Mom and Dad to beat you some more. I hate that I have to teach decorum to children who have parents. What I hate more is not having the time to teach them decorum because it takes away from teaching participial phrases only to learn later that nobody else is teaching participial phrases because they themselves don't understand them and they're "too hard." I hate then having to keep it a secret that I taught kids what participial phrases were because nobody else in the department taught their kids that (by the way, a participial phrase is when a verb is used as an adjective, e.g. the running dog, the tanned hide, the infuriating fuckhead).

I had some terrific coworkers. I had some terrific kids. I'll miss both even if I don't miss everything about the job.

Now, I need to find "another opportunity" worth having left my job for.

Joe Versus the Volcano

I just finished re-watching this movie again, and I think that it is probably my all-time favorite film. Tom Hanks characterized it as an "existential comedy with adventure and romance in it." That's probably a fair assessment. There's so much to say about this film, and so much has already been said about it, I'm not sure what I can add but a recommendation. I saw new things on this viewing that I had never seen before, but I see new things each time I see it. This time, it was the shape of the lightning bolt that destroys the Tweedle-Dee, and Joe's pronouncement to DeDe, Angelica, and Patricia that, upon first meeting each of them, he felt like he had met them before.
One day, Shel and I will have to renew our vows, and when we do, I want to go all-out with a Waponi-style wedding. Our first wedding was, as those who were there know, a Florin-style wedding, and that was comically memorable, but I'm convinced that the Waponi way is better.
I guess what I love about this film is the fact that it is so thoroughly enjoyable on so many different levels - if all you want is a brainless comedy, that's there (e.g. the Waponi gong ringers swinging into their instruments and kerflopping down to the ground, the fake testes on Mr. Waturi's desk), and if you want something deeper, that's there too.
The dialog is an example:
DeDe: "What's with the shoe, Joe?"
Joe: "I'm losing my [soul]."
The subtle, yet pervasive symbolism is another, e.g. the lighting bolt shape, (again) the fake testes on Mr. Waturi's desk, the shedding of a hat each time 'finishes' a stage of development.
The movie is super quotable: "[Luggage] is the central preoccupation of my life . . . . If I had the need, and the wherewithal, this would be my trunk of choice."
"Okay, I'll take four."
"May you live to be a thousand years old."
"Yeah, you too."
Joe is supposed to be an "everyman." That's his express purpose in the screenplay - to be the generic everyman, and to be the protagonist. He is loving, kind, generous, flexible, and long suffering - due chiefly to his own unwillingness to force change. He is a hypochondriac. He has a terrificly thankful sense of awe and wonder. He is able to enjoy irony and humor, even at his own expense. Some might argue that these qualities flout the "everyman" mold, but I believe that they exemplify it. Joe isn't who we each want to be - Joe is who we are.

enough.

I love this film.

It's a Shame

F**K Me Pumps Lyrics She'll probably be dead soon - at least if Bradley Noel, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, or common sense are any indication. Until she is, though, or at least until she makes a good start on a regular,-running-joke-on-The-Soup-disaster-of-Britney-esque-proportions downward spiral, I'll continue to enjoy her hot, retro, sultry, voice.

I know now that I'm late on this, but her music is new to me.