Spaceman Spiff

I got all wired up last night! Those of you who know me well will know that I have a sleeping disorder. Well, I don’t have a sleeping disorder, those around me have a sleeping disorder because I keep them awake with my snoring. This has caused the_mendicant no end of stress and lost sleep over the 19 years we’ve known each other. Earlier this year I decided to get something done about it and went to discuss it with my GP. He referred me to the Sleep Lab at Leicester Hospital and last night was when I went up there to get fitted with equipment to monitor whilst I slept.

Much to Mendi’s amusement I returned home with the following bits of hardware taped or glued to me:
- 3 electrodes on my chest to monitor my breathing
- A microphone wire taped to my cheeks and stuck up my nostrils and onto my top lip to monitor any sounds I made
- A really tight peg-like monitor on my finger to measure the oxygen in my blood and my heart-rate
All this scrap was connected by cables to a lunchbox-sized monitoring unit that sat by my bedside; and I was supposed to sleep?! *

I actually got off to sleep very quickly at about 11:40, but woke again and 12:30 and could not get back to sleep. I was so uncomfortable: I was getting tangled in the wires, the tubes up my nose were irritating me and the electrode glue was making me itch - Aaaargh!. In desperation, I got up and wandered about the house, did some LJ, drank some water, looked at the stars and eventually returned to bed to read. I think it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s truly dull Years of Rice and Salt that eventually put me back to sleep at sometime after 3am.

It felt like no time at all had passed when my alarm woke me at 06:40 this morning and I frantically ripped all the bits and pieces off my body and climbed into the shower to wash the glue, sticking plaster residue and frustration sweat off my body. I drove into work feeling for all the world like an apathetic zombie and spent the day trying to look alert and not fall asleep over my keyboard.

I hope all this leads to something, but I won’t even see the consultant for the results of last night’s monitoring until late-October and then there will undoubtedly be a longer wait for any action. In the meantime I’m doing the best thing to help my snoring – losing weight and munching_mel will tell you.






*…but at least I didn’t have to have a rectal sensor probe!

Spaceman Spiff

I got all wired up last night! Those of you who know me well will know that I have a sleeping disorder. Well, I don’t have a sleeping disorder, those around me have a sleeping disorder because I keep them awake with my snoring. This has caused the_mendicant no end of stress and lost sleep over the 19 years we’ve known each other. Earlier this year I decided to get something done about it and went to discuss it with my GP. He referred me to the Sleep Lab at Leicester Hospital and last night was when I went up there to get fitted with equipment to monitor whilst I slept.

Much to Mendi’s amusement I returned home with the following bits of hardware taped or glued to me:
- 3 electrodes on my chest to monitor my breathing
- A microphone wire taped to my cheeks and stuck up my nostrils and onto my top lip to monitor any sounds I made
- A really tight peg-like monitor on my finger to measure the oxygen in my blood and my heart-rate
All this scrap was connected by cables to a lunchbox-sized monitoring unit that sat by my bedside; and I was supposed to sleep?! *

I actually got off to sleep very quickly at about 11:40, but woke again and 12:30 and could not get back to sleep. I was so uncomfortable: I was getting tangled in the wires, the tubes up my nose were irritating me and the electrode glue was making me itch - Aaaargh!. In desperation, I got up and wandered about the house, did some LJ, drank some water, looked at the stars and eventually returned to bed to read. I think it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s truly dull Years of Rice and Salt that eventually put me back to sleep at sometime after 3am.

It felt like no time at all had passed when my alarm woke me at 06:40 this morning and I frantically ripped all the bits and pieces off my body and climbed into the shower to wash the glue, sticking plaster residue and frustration sweat off my body. I drove into work feeling for all the world like an apathetic zombie and spent the day trying to look alert and not fall asleep over my keyboard.

I hope all this leads to something, but I won’t even see the consultant for the results of last night’s monitoring until late-October and then there will undoubtedly be a longer wait for any action. In the meantime I’m doing the best thing to help my snoring – losing weight and munching_mel will tell you.






*…but at least I didn’t have to have a rectal sensor probe!