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The Writing Life of a Tadpole

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The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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2016 – Progress on my red goals

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
January 2 2017

I mentioned in my earlier posts that I would talk about something in the red goals section, and this is that section, so I guess I will cover the issues here, if I have to! They impact on everything, which is not surprising as the red goals are about health and career.

MY RED GOALS: Be bright, be bold, be direct

For my Career, I was experiencing a bit of ennui. I love my job, it’s a great configuration…I have a fair amount of autonomy, knowable deliverables, enough variety to keep it interesting, and a solid team to manage. And yet…there is something in my work that is becoming a bit stale. I have been in the same job for eight years, something often unheard of in the EC category of government, with policy analysts being one of the most mobile groups in government. Even for planners, I’ve been a bit long in the same spot. For the first five years, the job was highly variable with lots of big projects that dwarfed my so-called “day job”, and so I was more about projects than regular management. Over the last three, however, I’ve been doing a newish job which combined all the planning files together in one team. And, as I said, it’s a great job.

But earlier this year I applied for a Director-level job and I updated my resume from two years ago — and only had to change six words. Literally, that was it. All the functions were basically the same, and the description was the same. Considering I started in government in B.C. with a job for eight months, then DFAIT for four years with three sub-jobs, CIDA / Multilateral for five years with three sub-jobs, bilateral for 8 months, policy for three years with two sub-jobs, DM’s office for eight months, SDC international for a year plus, and then HRSDC / policy for almost two, it’s not surprising that when most things haven’t changed in my duties for 8 years and nothing in 3, I might be feeling a bit stale.

I don’t quite want to say unchallenged, but I’m also not growing a whole lot in the job either. On the other hand, it is still a great job, and if I was closer to retirement, I’d just stay put. But I’m ten years out, and that is between three and four jobs. Probably at least two. So I need to do something about that, and I did a bit at the end of the year. I’ve at least put some actions in gear, including encouraging my current boss to look at hiring a replacement (even before I actually leave). There’s a theory that if you “announce” a goal, make it public, it helps keep you on track to actually achieving it, and I’ve used that stick here to force myself to find a new job, since I had already said two years in a row that it was time to move on and didn’t.

Related to moving on is my need to recertify my french. For those who remember, I struggled mightily back in ’98/’99 to get my french (B level intermediate) and it was such a demoralizing experience for me that I actually convinced myself that there was no chance of my ever getting C levels for oral. Fast forward to ’04, and I was looking at changing jobs, so I needed to recertify again. One week of re-training, and the guy told me I could already pass the B, so getting to C was not only possible, but practically guaranteed. A completely different mindset, and only partly based on good retention ability. Two months of 1:1 training, plus a few months of occasional tutor sessions, and I hit my C early in ’05.

But I’ve done almost nothing since about that…a written retest at one point, but I’m long expired for written and oral. And since it wasn’t urgent to change jobs, and I didn’t “have to” recertify, I have dragged my feet. There is a perfectly valid psychological reason for that, if not a great one.

The fact is that I derive a fair amount of my self-identity, and even self-esteem, from the fact that I am good at my job. Okay, I admit I’m being falsely humble. I’m awesome at my job. I report to a DG instead of a director, partly because of my abilities (which is also good for their budget, but that’s another story). I regularly get top-marks on my performance ratings, other branches call us to see what we’re doing so they can emulate it on the planning files, my bosses almost always love me up the line. And, even if I was deluded by all of that, my wife regularly has experiences where she is talking to people at work who find out that I’m her husband (since we have different last names, it isn’t immediately obvious of course), and then she has to listen to them regale her with stories about how amazing I am (she hasn’t yet said, “Are you freakin’ kidding me? Have you TRIED living with him? Let me tell you the reality!”, but it’s likely on her list of future replies). So there’s that.

Yet when I am on language training, I lose that sense of myself. I lose part of my identity, I’m not the “manager” anymore, I’m just Joe Student and honestly, not a great one. I feel my sense of self-worth slipping. Each and every time I’ve done it, even when I got my C, there was a loss in sense of who I am during the training.

And if I’m brutally honest, I haven’t been able to afford that right now. As positive as I have been about my BLUE, GREEN and YELLOW goals, my RED goals have been kicking my ass three ways from sideways.

To close off though, I pushed this year to do my french training and the organizational response was less than overwhelming. I was offered stupid options twice, even one that was 9 hours a week for a year. My retention is way better than that, and because of some tweaks to the org chart, I’m even considered a priority, so part-time on my own was not what we were looking for in the way of training. I did a bit on my own, not a lot, just some basic review, and then went for a new assessment back at the scene of the crime in ’98/98 — Asticou. The name strikes fear in the hearts of many a civil servant who had bad experiences there (if you are a good language student, you can have good experiences anywhere, as a friend of mine did at Asticou; if you are a bad language student, you may struggle anywhere too, but if you are in a bad environment as some found at Asticou, you will be in hell). The good news initially though was that they assessed me as almost close to levels still already, and that I would only need 1:1 refresh for about three weeks. A drop in the proverbial bucket and no risk to my psyche. Except that option fell off the table with an organizational change, and I don’t know what is going on anymore. People are looking into other options, but in the meantime, I’m planning to do most of it myself on my own in January and February as that is the only part I can control. Frustrating but I need to get ‘er done. With the assessment at only 3 weeks, I’m colouring it GREEN, although it was not the colour I thought it would be up until early November.

For Stretching, I did some basic work early in the year, and I’ve stuck with some of it that helps my back, but nowhere near the level I want to be at. I kept up with Chiro too, but definitely still leaving the category as RED.

For a general category of Exercise, with walking at lunch, some kata exercises, and more activity on weekends, I am going to say right up front that is this is a blazing hot RED. Way past fire-engine. I don’t have the words to show how bad it has been.

As I said earlier, there was something I would talk about in the red goal section, and this is it. My health over the last year has kicked up a fuss and wiped out just about any energy I had to do anything.

In 2015, I did a sleep test with a guy who is a bit of an activist on sleep apnea, and I didn’t have the highest level of efficacy in his results, but I did take it seriously enough to try to improve the environmental factors and some routine factors to see if it helped with my sleep. It did, but not enough. I was still sleeping anywhere from 5 to 6 hours a night with lots of interruptions during the night, and general fatigue, headaches, etc.

So in March of this year, I went in and picked up a sleep machine. If you saw earlier posts, I started to blog about it and thought I would keep it going as it would be relatively straight-forward to write about and explain. Not so much.

For those who don’t know much about sleep apnea, it is basically that you “stop” breathing for a second or so while you’re sleeping. Often it is because your tongue or part of your throat pushes back and closes on your airway, and no air goes through. Almost like a vapor lock. Your body will wake you up, you change positions, adjust your throat or tongue, and bob’s your uncle, you can breathe again. Most people don’t wake up fully, their body just adjusts as it goes. But it is crappy sleep. To find out if you have sleep apnea, you go to a sleep clinic, they hook you up with a bunch of wires, monitor a bunch of stuff during the night, and mostly count how many “incidents” you have per hour. Five is “normal”. Twenty is “severe apnea”.

My score? 124 an hour. I don’t even know how they count that. Which is partly why I didn’t know if the original results were even valid, but whatever. I got the machine, tried it out, blogged a few times, felt a bit better, good to go. Or so I thought.

Over the first six weeks, we had to play a lot with the settings. Initially I was using CPAP — a constant air pressure. It is the most common machine that people get, and it basically slowly ramps up from a low pressure to a stable pressure and then stays there during the night. I was still waking up, still having incidents although not as many, having headaches etc., and I started to actually feel MORE tired than previously. And I won’t name the company, but I wasn’t that thrilled with my service either.

On a pressure scale of 20 or 30 (don’t remember which), I was starting with an initial pressure of 5 that would ramp up slowly to 15. After a week, they would start me at 6, then 7, then 8, etc. I was five weeks in and we had made a couple of adjustments. Then my rep suggested we raise it to 6. I was like, “What? I was at 6 weeks ago, wtf?”. Yep, the machine had auto-reset (it has a modem that sends the data to the centre, I don’t monitor it, so I didn’t have any idea) and they didn’t notice, even when they went to adjust it again. But there I was, back at the beginning again. Tried a few more weeks, not much change.

So my doctor switched me to the APAP machine. This is an alternating/auto adjusting air pressure that basically alters the pressure depending on how hard I am breathing in or out, rather than a constant pressure. A little more aggressive, and it was better, but I wasn’t filled with energy. In fact, I was still feeling quite lethargic in the mornings. I kept feeling like I was waking up mid-REM sleep/cycle. Note that the auto-adjusting feature is a bit misleading. It doesn’t actually completely adjust to my individual breaths, more like analysing a series of breaths and then running an algorithm to figure out what settings to use.

Then my doctor switched me in September to a BIPAP machine. This one also adjusts, but it measures each and every breath in and out and adjusts immediately. Much more aggressive form of treatment, and more costly, so they don’t prescribe these machines until they try the other ones. Tried it for September, October, and November, and it is definitely the best of the options.

Mind you, all three did reduce my incident rate to less than five, so therapeutically, all worked. Except the first two left me with headaches and some other surprises.

In almost all patients, somewhere near 98%, you actually lose weight or at least stay the same using the machine. More restful sleep, blah blah blah, healthier you, blah blah blah, more energy, more blah blah blah, who cares the reason, you lose weight while sleeping better!

Lucky me, the kicker is that in 2% of users, you can GAIN weight. Yep, that was my experience. The first one started me off big time, with almost a 20 lb gain in 6-7 weeks. I have a weight problem already, but I manage just fine with it most of the time. It isn’t great, other issues at play too, and the long-term health costs, but day to day, I don’t “feel” it too strongly. I don’t get out of breath going up stairs at work, most things I want to do in day-to-day are fine. I’m not running marathons or water-skiing, but most of the time I am functional.

Add 20 lbs, plus major water retention and swelling of ankles and legs, and my energy levels plummeted back in May / June. I wouldn’t quite rate my fatigue and ennui to previous levels of depression, but I was losing steam big time. Mentally, emotionally, physically, intellectually, psychologically, there was nothing I was interested in working on. I added my therapist/social worker/counsellor back to the mix to keep my psyche tuned up, but the body changes were still affecting my mind too.

So, from April to October at least, I was MIA. Even some medication I take for reflux and blood pressure were suddenly acting up…I used to take them at supper, easy for my routine, worked fine for me. Now I have to take them in the morning or run the risks of headaches by mid-afternoon.

The BIPAP helped changed things a lot in October. I even noticed it in my ability to control my own emotions. We went to an appointment at a treatment centre with Jacob, and honestly, they have been doing a terrible job of coordination for over a year now. No guidance on what we should be doing, no options, heck they didn’t even know which personnel we should see. There are organizational reasons for it, and the issue is not acute, but we were trying to be proactive on it, and 13 months later, we finally had an appointment to see someone who we would told would handle it.

We went to see them, had the appointment, doctor was all happy, good to go. We’re like, “Umm, what about our issue?”. Well, he doesn’t deal with that. The person doing the coordination hadn’t mentioned it to him, he doesn’t do that type of work, and we were there for (almost) nothing. Thirteen months and back to square one after taking time off work for the appointment that would finally get us where we needed to be, and the guy doesn’t even do that type of work.

In many circumstances, this is where I would turn to Andrea and suggest she talk to the people cuz I’m likely to lose it, which serves no one. Plus I tend to want to go for a nuclear option and raise the engagement level by several rungs of the organization. In this case, though, I handled it myself, went to the main coordinating office and calmly, rationally, politely said, “Umm, there seems to be some confusion, and we need some new guidance.” The woman was very apologetic and helpful, and would get us the right info, etc. No big deal, moving on.

I said to Andrea afterwards, “Did you see me?????”.

She was like, “Yeah, who ARE you?”.

Cuz that’s not normally me.

But it was me with BIPAP treatment, decent sleep, and no headache. Progress.

I would like to say I’ve been the same ever since, but I haven’t. A few weeks later, I had a particularly brutal day at work and I was clearly in need of different interventions than I was capable of making. Very unproductive, very angry, very aggressive, very nuclear. It’s improving, but it’s not night and day, more like a slow dawn with some bright rays of sunshine leaping out from between trees in a forest.

The weight has improved slightly under the BIPAP, dropped 10 of the 20 I gained, and hoping to see that continue.

But overall, the changes in my body killed just about everything I was working on across the board for all goals. The headaches, for example, have been a lot like those for people with head injuries, except that I know my functions will return later in the day or the next when the headache passes. Yet the fatigue and the headaches sapped any hope I had most days for making progress on anything. Some days it was just easier to go back to bed and wait it out.

I was making some progress again in early November, and then I got the cough from hell. I’ve had it before, as one of my coworkers reminded me. It started innocently enough, basically just a small cold that went away and came back a week later. Lots had it, including Jacob. But one of the benefits of a sleep apnea machine is that it has moisture options that blow into your nose all night and help keep things healthy.

Yet the cough lingered. So much so that I threw my ribs out. Twice. Very dry, very deep in my throat but not my chest. Just a dry tickle that would not go away. I had this once before about 2 years ago, and same prognosis and treatment. The infection was gone but the inflammation continued.

So I had to take a steroid for the deep throat, a puffer for the upper throat, and keep it going for up to 6 weeks after the cold or flu are gone. Bloody hell. Mine took residence at the start of November and it was well into December before I could stop the steroid. I’m still using the regular puffer from time to time when I start to feel there’s a small rattle down there.

So 6 months of sleep treatments with my body going wonky from time to time as it adjusted (headaches, bloating, blah blah blah), and 7 weeks of the cough from hell, plus general stuff in there for regular aches / pains / colds / flu for the year.

All in all, I hated 2016. I said the only way out was through, and I had no idea how prophetic that was. I survived the year, and I am literally shocked that I made progress on any of my goals after March. I feel like I’ve got the sleep thing relatively under control, and while I’m not in the 98% that loses weight using it, I’ll be happy when I’m at least back down to my regular weight and can start fresh again at trying to reduce that further.

Over the last few months, I’ve even had to admit to Andrea a few times, “I don’t know if I can do activity x”, which was never the case before. But I worry about it more, and that is a good impetus for me for 2017. I’m a little worried about our trip to Mexico as I don’t normally do that well in heat, nor is it a great combo for my blood pressure, but I should be okay with the right balance to the day.

And I went skating today. A month ago, I suspected I might not be able to, but I did. It was a bit rough on my legs, but that wasn’t necessarily new. Just that I’ve been a bigger couch potato for the last 9 months and it’s time I got back into the game.

I have no idea what I’m going to do for my goals this year, but I have a small idea to keep it manageable. Realistic even. That will be new for me, when I normally go hog wild.

So maybe the glaring RED for my red goals might actually be a future motivator.

Hope springs eternal. Maybe that will be my new slogan for 2017.

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Posted in Goals | Tagged 2016, development, goals, personal, progress, red, tracking | 2 Replies
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Sleep apnea treatment, days 3-8

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 9 2016

An interesting experience over the last six days. I am using my machine more and more each night, and sleeping longer and longer each bout. I still wake up once or twice during the night, but that’s better than 3-4. In terms of “incidences”, my AHI index of 124 which is way beyond severe apnea, is down to less than 5 (earlier it said .5, but that was an email typo of my results). So that’s the sleep side, which is the primary goal.

However, I have had fewer foggy incidents during the day too. My head is generally clearer. I have felt a bit light-headed a few times later at night, and my sleep cycle is still off. I did better the first week, better sleep routine, this past few nights I’ve been back to going to bed too late and getting up later in the morning. Which then messes me up during the day, particularly if I compensate with caffeine or more fluid intake after 9:00 at night. In other words, the sleep machine doesn’t cure having a stupid sleep routine that can still screw me up. Or, as Andrea puts it, one week won’t cure your sleep deficit of 47 years. Personally, I’m looking into declaring sleep bankruptcy, starting fresh. 🙂

At the same time, however, I have blood pressure issues from before. About 3 years ago, I was sick and jacked myself full of cold remedies for a week. By the weekend, I had a serious sore ear, and thought it was an infection or something. Nope, glands were fine too. I did however have a BP of 165/100 or so. Stroke range. Got the meds going, can’t take decogestants cuz part of how they work is jacking BP, and the meds keep me pretty even-keeled at 120/80ish. Sometimes 125, sometimes 85, but most of the time it is 120/80 plus a point or two.

However, a friend who was doing great with similar machine noted her BP was way down after a month. So I started tracking it immediately, worried about it going too low. Had a small checkup at doctor’s the other day (with an awesome doctor, surprisingly, too bad I probably can’t keep her there, it’s a teaching clinic), and my BP was down to 114/80 and 111/78. So we’re changing dosage of one of my meds. Definitely an encouraging sign.

There’s also an improvement I think in overall energy levels, but not sure quite how to explain it. Basically, I’m less abnormally tired/exhausted and more normally sleepyish? I’m not falling asleep or anything, but I do find myself yawning more than I did before. A very relaxed sleepy yawn rather than a tense over-tired haven’t slept yawn.

I’m not fog free, I’m not using the machine for a full sleep cycle, I’m not bouncing with energy and glowing as the picture of health, but it’s all going well. I have another three weeks before I go for my follow-up appointment but I’m moving from cautiously optimistic to relatively convinced there are strong treatment benefits if not yet an outright “cure” for my apnea.

The success has also had a few ripple effects on other goals — I’m more motivated to do basic exercise (walking, etc.), I bought a new weight scale with better precision for a guy of my weight/size, I’m tracking my sleep times in my phone tracker too. All seems to be moving forward.

Funny thing, I’m more excited to get off my BP meds so that I can take cold remedies again when I’m sick (I have a lot of trouble kicking things now without access to decongestants), but Andrea mentioned — “don’t forget alcohol again too!”. Since I’m such a lush, no doubt! 🙂

Onward. The only way out is through.

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Posted in Experiences, Goals | Tagged experience, goals, health, nervousness, personal, red | 3 Replies
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Sleep apnea treatment, day 2 results

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 3 2016

So I went to bed just before 11:00 last night, and fell asleep well enough after I got over my initial hyper-ventilating. I think I need to let my body relax a bit, settle for a minute or two before I put on the machine, maybe while it is warming up the water. Then I slept until after 1:00. That might not seem like much, but it was well over the 90 minute sleep cycle I normally have i.e. it pushed through it.

The problem was I felt like (a) I needed to go to the bathroom eventually / not urgently and (b) I had a tickle in the back of my throat I wasn’t able to clear. Took a break, got up, went to the washroom, And the tickle became reflux. Not sure if that was a reaction to swallowing too much air, or something else. Going to try clearing my throat more before I start tonight.

Went back to bed eventually, decided to try it again anyway, vomiting or not, and had no issues — slept again for more than 2 hours. So it’s working, and I slept more than the previous night with the machine (about 4 hours the first night, probably about 5 hours the second).

And I woke up this morning with my head the clearest it has been in months. I felt great. Until I got up and started doing stuff, and then some of the fuzzies came back in. And this evening I was really tired and partially two-headed again, but it held off longer than usual today, another encouraging sign. Plus my right jaw cracked this morning, releasing a lot of tension, which I think is because I haven’t been clenching and grinding as much either. Another bonus.

Still cautiously optimistic.

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Sleep apnea treatment, day 1 results

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 2 2016

As noted yesterday (Nervous yet resolute), I picked up an APAP machine yesterday to see if it can help with my sleep apnea. I set it up last night, adjusted the straps on the head gear, filled up the water reservoir, adjusted pillows and setup of my night stand to accommodate everything, and gave it a whirl.

In the first couple of minutes, I felt like I was hyper-ventilating. Likely a combination of it being APAP not CPAP, so it actually ramps up from air pressure of “5” to a maximum of “16” for me (range is 0 to 20 for the machine, and in contrast with CPAP that just has steady number the whole time, mine will also decrease if I’m not needing the higher number), and that whole nervous thing I mentioned in the title of the post.

I waited a few minutes, tried again, got it set up, and waited. Wondered if I would be able to fall asleep with it on. Apparently I can. My wife came in a little while later and noticed (a) I was asleep, (b) I was lying on my back which is unusual as I’m a side sleeper and back sleeping makes me snore, and worsens apnea, and (c) I was sleeping completely peacefully with my mouth closed (there’s another first).

That lasted about 80 minutes or so and then I woke up. It felt like my headgear was squeezing my head too much — not so much a suction problem, more like the straps were too tight. Adjusted things, took a break for a bit, went to the washroom, reattached everything, good to go again. And slept for about 90 minutes. That’s my standard sleep cycle anyway.

I can’t remember if I tried for awhile without it then or later, but did another round in there for about 90 minutes or so, and eventually got up around 5:00 and went to the washroom again (I drank way too much water later in the evening that I would normally, I was dehydrated from dinner and trying the different headgear). I also took some medication about 3 hours later than normal, which always messes my sleep too.

Back to bed around 5:30 or so, tried again, and laid there for about 30-45 minutes before I packed it in. I was not going back to sleep. I felt fine, still “sleepy” but not “dead sleepy” as I am usually at that time.

Trying to assess preliminary results is foolish, but I’m going to do it anyway:

  • I was tired today, but more sleepy than exhausted, which is probably an improvement;
  • Oddly enough, I felt like I had an air-conditioning hang-over, or as if I had been on an airplane too long. It’s a really hard feeling to describe, but I feel almost two-headed — like my physical head and my subconscious mind are not perfectly aligned along the same axis. This has been going on for quite some time though, no apparent cause, and while it was worse today than it has been in awhile, it’s still within the normal realm of “me”;
  • My jaw was less sore today than usual, makes me think I might have avoided grinding somewhat too; and,
  • My right ear “popped” today — not a air pressure clear, more like my jaw cracked, which sounds almost like it’s in my ear when it happens … often if I have a pressure or tension headache, the pressure goes away or at least decreases significantly if I can get my ear / jaw to pop / crack. If not, I have to do TMJ-style massaging along my jawline to get the muscles to relax. I haven’t been able to get it crack in months, today the right one went no problem, and my left one felt like it was ready to go, just not there yet. An audible release they call it when it goes; relief is what I call it.

Overall, my first night with the machine wasn’t an unqualified success, but I didn’t feel horrible doing it, I did sleep with it on, not 100% of the time, but at least 50-60% which is a good start considering it takes some getting used to in terms of the air of course but also the head gear too.

My sleep study produced a more accurate “Apnea Hypopnea Index (AHI)” number, of course, as it has lots of sensors. The AHI is the number of incidents recorded per hour. Depending on the geographical area and who the governing council is, the standards are usually that < 5 incidents per hour is considered minimal or non-existent apnea. Mild would be 5-15 events per hour, moderate would be 15-30, and severe would be over 30. My official number from the whackjobs at the sleep clinic was 124. Severe severe severe why is he not dead yet apnea. According to the standards. However, first I’m not positive the sleep clinic was entirely reliable (low efficacy as per the previous post), and second, the woman teaching me the new machines was like, “Yeah, it’s high, but not anywhere near the highest, maybe above average but not big time.” Personally I think 2 per minute sounds like a lot from the original study.

The reason I mention it however is that the machine estimates how many you have based on the way you breathe in and out. It’s not as reliable as the sleep study, of course. But the machine knows when you’re inhaling and exhaling as it affects the amount of resistance it registers. And the machine comes with an SD card, and a modem to transmit my sleep data directly back to the company during the day. My numbers for last night? 0.5. A “half” of an event. I don’t even know what half an event is, but still, it basically registered me as having no apnea with the machine running and the air blowing in.

That’s pretty dang impressive.

I’ll keep at it. There are also some potential short-term benefits besides just better sleeping, including a small amount of weight loss (partly due to decreased bloating, metabolic improvements or more accurately, stopping things from screwing up your metabolism) and a reduction in blood pressure. I’m happy but a little nervous about my blood pressure potentially going down too far as I have meds that are supposed to regulate it low already, and the meds work pretty well. I’m going to monitor my BP twice a day for the next month or so, just to make sure nothing dramatic happens and my BP suddenly plummets without me knowing.

The only thing that presented a real challenge to me, and it’s a bit funny, is trying to yawn with the mask on my nose.

With the nose mask on, as soon as you open your mouth, there’s essentially a bit of a vapour lock as the air comes in your nose and out through your mouth and nothing goes down. Your mouth may even make a vibrating noise as it opens and closes a bit. Very disturbing. Anyway, I tried yawning and my mouth kind of blew an inverted raspberry (hard to explain, almost more vacuum in than blowing out as the vapour lock wants your mouth to slam back shut even as you try to open it). I asked the tech, she laughed and said, no, there were no special techniques she knew of to do it. I found out though that if I put up my hand and cover my mouth (like you would in polite company anyway), it creates enough of a shield for you to open your mouth without the machine clamping it shut or your lips/cheeks/mouth doing a concert. Doesn’t sound like much, but the alternative was very unsatisfying stifled yawns as I was getting really sleepy. 🙂

So I’m trying again tonight, hoping I can hold out to 11:00 or so to go to bed so I’m not awake at the crack of stupid. Wish me luck.

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Posted in Experiences, Goals | Tagged experience, goals, health, nervousness, personal, red | 3 Replies
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Nervous yet resolute

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 1 2016

So I have always had interesting sleep patterns. Bouts of insomnia, bouts of oversleeping. Frequently waking up with a sore jaw because I’m a grinder. But apnea wasn’t really on my list of likely causes of sleep problems. Mostly cuz I’m fortunate enough to share my bed with someone familiar with sleep apnea and I wasn’t showing the regular signs of jerking awake, obstructed breathing, making choking noises in my sleep, or even restless leg syndrome of twitching while sleeping. Sure, I occasionally snore, but more so when I ended up on my back than my usual side.

Last January (2015), I headed off though for a sleep study. Really I thought I was mostly grinding, but open to seeing what other problems I might have that caused me to sleep so badly. Andrea had done a sleep test years before, so I was open to it. However, in the pre-meeting with the doctor for the first time, I had a less than stellar beginning. I filled out the patient history forms, blah blah blah, the doctor calls me in, he hasn’t read through them yet, and he starts to go through them with me. Thirty seconds in he basically tells me 50% of people have sleep apnea, he thinks I have severe apnea and I should not only do the sleep test but I can go ahead and book an appointment with a CPAP vendor. Really? You haven’t even read my forms or done the test but you’re already giving me my diagnosis? Based on what — the fact that I’m fat? Really? He even as I was leaving suggested a specific vendor I should go to…something, by the way, that I know violates just about every ethical standard there is for medicine because it shows up regularly as a frustration for patients. Like when I needed someone to do stuff for Jacob and they were reluctant to tell me which doctor or private specialist to go see, preferring to just give us the list and let us choose. Yet this guy had no trouble pointing to one, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Whatever, I went to the sleep study. I figured these people would be more clinically detached. Nope, the woman basically told me as soon as I walked in that I had sleep apnea, would need a machine for the rest of my life, etc. Did the sleep test with half the night with no machines and half the night with constant air pressure. I couldn’t tell the difference honestly. Didn’t seem to make any difference at all.

In the end, I didn’t follow up and tried other stuff over the last year. We got a new mattress which helped. I stopped having caffeine most days after 4:00 p.m., and tried cutting back more generally. A few other things. When I follow the regime, it helps; then I get busy, fall into old habits, and it doesn’t work. However, I was at a massage the one day, and I kind of dozed off for part of it. And the RMT asked me afterwards if I have a CPAP machine or not, cuz I was definitely stopping breathing while I was dozing. Good to know. Another RMT told me the same thing. Again, good to know, and oddly enough, I trust both of them farther than I could throw the quack I saw in the first place.

Fast-forward to the new year, I’ve been thinking of redoing the test with someone else, and I found out that a friend had used a company called Inspiration Medic and was really finding it to work out well in getting the right fit for the masks, etc. Encouraging. Partly because most people I know who have stories about CPAP machines or mouth devices fall into one of two camps — either it did nothing for them, and there was virtually no impact (often because they couldn’t get the right settings, but might have also been misdiagnosed too) OR they think it’s the greatest invention of all time and can’t believe they didn’t do it earlier. Most people I know have been in the first camp. Mild improvements at best.

But with the encouragement that someone got it to work well with Inspiration Medic, I set up an appointment last week for this week, got the sleep clinic to send over the paperwork with the settings, and I went tonight.

Finding the right mask is always the biggest challenge, with air pressure settings often the secondary problem. In my case, I qualify for APAP which instead of “Constant” air pressure I get “Auto” i.e. it ramps up when I seem to need it, and ramps down when I don’t. It’s more expensive than CPAP (of course) so the government only funds APAP if you meet the medical criteria in the sleep test. Great — I sucked bad enough that I qualify for APAP!

Tried three masks tonight, got a loaner unit, all set up, and with the mask on, Andrea can’t even hear it. Nice little machine. So tonight will be the first night. I may not make it the whole night the first night wearing the gear, but I’ll try.

I’m nervous, but resolute. Onward for the path to improved sleeping, I hope!

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Posted in Experiences, Goals, To Be Updated | Tagged experience, goals, health, nervousness, personal, red | 3 Replies

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