By Pam (“Gates”) Johnson
The on-going health saga of Ma Johnson continues.
After a little heart-related health scare recently, the doctors decided that the root cause may be sleep apnea. We all know at least 10 people who have sleep apnea and are getting along just fine with a CPAP machine, so my fear-ometer dropped to the non-anxiety mode. Following doctor’s orders, I made an appointment with a sleep clinic.
About 10 or 15 years ago, I had one of those overnight sleep studies. I went to the clinic in Burien, was hooked up to a bunch of wires and stuff, and told to go to sleep. A tech was watching everything from another room just in case I stopped breathing, so they could wake me up before I died. After a very horrible night, which involved getting up every three or four hours to go to the bathroom, the tech said yep, I had apnea and would probably need a CPAP.
At the next appointment, I told the doctor that I did not want the machine, just in case I might get a boyfriend. I did not want to have to wear an elephant trunk to bed.
An alternative treatment was to have my uvula removed, which I did. And I thought my problem was cured, or at least mostly better, until 10 or 15 years later, which is now.
My cardiologist set me up with a sleep clinic to have another study done. This was not something I looked forward to. Turns out, the technology has changed, and you can now have the study done in the comfort of your own home and bed, or in my case, recliner.
When setting up the appointment, I was told to come in one day, pick up the equipment and get instructions on how to use it, and then return it the next day. There were two clinics to choose from: one in Federal Way and one in Gig Harbor. I chose Gig Harbor because it involved fewer freeway miles. Yes, I am becoming freeway-phobic.
Appointment day arrived, and I headed out for the Tahlequah boat. While waiting on the dock, I managed to enter the clinic address into my maps, since I had no idea where this new Gig Harbor hospital was. The directions looked fairly easy to follow. My confidence was pretty high as I started off.
I managed to get in the correct lane as I merged onto 16 and headed for the Narrows Bridge, hoping to get in the correct lane again, as there is no lane-changing allowed once you are on the bridge deck.
As I drove across the bridge, I thought about the times I had driven that road in my 1970-something Ford pick-up pulling a horse trailer. I had a lot more driving confidence then, and there was a lot less traffic.
Of course, I was in the wrong lane once over the bridge and had to do a quick lane change so as not to go somewhere unknown. The GPS told me what exit to take, which was easy. What was not easy was the roundabout at the end of the exit.
GPS said take the third road off the roundabout. It did not tell me if the exit counted as the first road or if should I be in the inside or the outside lane of said roundabout. As one would guess, I missed the turn and headed off over the freeway to another roundabout.
Inside lane or outside lane, or just choose one and take a chance? I managed to negotiate that circle and found myself back at the first one. Second time was a charm.
Got to my appointment on time. The nurse gave me the equipment, showed me a short video on how to use it, and said I should bring it back the next day. Not wanting to make another trip that included another ferry fare and Narrows toll, I asked if I could just UPS it back.
Nope. Apparently, last year somebody did that and it got lost in the mail. The equipment costs $4,000, so the mail cannot be trusted.
So, I got home, got through the day, and then it was time to saddle up and get this study going. The apparatus consisted of a Velcro belt that goes around your body, above the boobage, with a little battery-operated machine thing that sits on your heart area. On the left side, there was a tube connected to one of those heart rate, oxygen things that go on the end of your finger. The right side had a tube connected to a thing that sticks up your nose.
Once everything was in place, I pressed the button in the middle. When the green light came on, it was working. There were three other lights. If they were green, all was good. If they blinked red, I had to fiddle around with the tubes until they turned green again. Now, try to sleep. Think I got up four times during the night to go to the bathroom and check and adjust blinking lights.
Up the next morning for another exciting trip to Gig Harbor. At least this time I knew where I was going, and only made one wrong turn. Got back to the Island before noon and had lots of time to cook our Thursday night family dinner. Now, I wait for results.
