It's all good so far

Well the wires and electrodes are off and the test has been completed. I am collecting my thoughts at breakfast.

Checked into the lab around 7:30 last night. By 10:00, was equipped with electrodes for the EKG (ankles and clavicles) and the EEG which required many measurements of my skull. The placement with of electrodes was designed to provide coverage in bilateral symmetry. I don’t think they took excessive density into account or the fact that one too many flipturns may have caused some seriously twisted cerebral alignment in addition to twisted thinking. Anyway, I had a number of crosses made on my head. I am very glad that the red ink was water soluble otherwise we would have had some very interesting vacation pictures.

Then came the wiring around the optic nerves, above and below the back corner of eyes. Next was the O2 meter taped to a finger. Then came the air lines up the nose and in the mouth. Watch and fit bit went into the backpack. I wish I could have taken a picture but that might frighten future patients from going through the procedure.

The bed was a queen sized bed with a tempurpedic mattress, unfortunately covered with a heavy plastic mattress cover. You lie there and are directed through a series of exercises to test the wiring and the camera. Then it is off to sleep.

This would be great if you quickly drift off, however, most of us are there because of sleep issues. Tossing and turning is a little more complicated with 47 different wired glued to various parts of your body. Getting a drink of water without electrocution is an accomplishment. And there are a number of instructions to follow in case you have an early morning call of nature,

So you lie there, knowing that your attempts at sleep are being recorded on video tape. I know that I slept some. I woke up a few times to rehydrate, then around 3 am the gmail notifications started on the iPhone. I could have sworn that I had all notifications turned off. And inspire of what the fanboys say, a mechanical mute should rule over all electronic sub-switches. It happened enough that the nurses got curious and came into the room to see what was going bing that should not be binging. I explained that it was apple voodoo and we got the phone turned off.

Tossed, turned, and rehydrated a few more times and was surprised by the 6:00 am wake up. Spent 20 minutes getting detached, then dressed and to the house. As I was leaving, the nurse said the Doctor would contact me and let me know if I needed to repeat the test with the cpac machine or not. I am not worried, I have a week in the wine country to recover.

This entry was posted on August 17, 2013 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.