Friday, October 3, 2008

Sleep Tests and Stitches



It's been an eventful last few days and I'm finding it harder to blog on a regular basis now that school's back in session. I thought it would be easier, but I'm taking advantage of my time with Tyler to get more exercise in and more errands done. Good trade off, I suppose.

Well, tonight we had a great dinner with some of our friends from high school and their families. Between the 3 families, there were 12 kids under the age of 11. All the kids arrived and ran out back to play in the yard. I don't think it had even been 5 minutes (maybe, I was busy cooking and I'm not good at noticing time when cooking), when Pete and Cory brought in two bleeding boys. There were too many kids on the trampoline, and Jake took a chin to the top of his head, the chin belonging to McLain, who ended up with a big gauge on his chin. Both boys bleeding, both boys needed stitches. We hadn't even eaten yet, so we got the bleeding under control, ate and spend the evening with our friends, and then Pete headed to the office to do stitch repairs. I'm afraid the Brighton PeeWee's will be less one lineman tomorrow, but Jake had a pretty bad cut that was bleeding profusely. That makes deux stitches for Jake. Madeline has had stitches once, also sewn up by her father in our bedroom, and Mitchell should have had stitches twice, but Pete decided the cuts were clean enough that they'd heal up fine on their own (contrary to what our other physician friends thought, but that's a different story). Unless you count stitches from surgery, then Jake's had two surgeries, Mitchell, one. So far, no stitches for Tyler and no broken bones yet, so I think we're doing pretty good . . .

Look at all those wires! I didn't post this because it was pretty--more humorous than anything else.

I also had another sleep test. I'm including a photo because it struck me as very funny that to have a sleep test, they basically attach so many wires to your head and body, that actually getting any sleep is nearly impossible. I've had a problem with being overly tired and some insomnia, so my doc had me do an at home sleep test, which was the worst night of sleep I'd had in a long time. Unfortunately, that test showed that my oxygen levels were somewhat low during some phases of sleep, so they wanted me to do a follow up study in their sleep lab. I'm pretty kick-back, I had an "hey, why not attitude about it." So Wednesday evening, after a fun day of golf with Pete I might add, I headed to the sleep lab. I had 12 wires hooked to my head, 2 to my chin, 2 to my chest, several to my legs, 1 on my neck, plus three bands of wires around my middle. They used tape and some adhesive to afix the wires to my hair that took 4 shampoo's to remove. Surprisingly, I did fall asleep initially, but then woke up in middle of the night and never got back to sleep again. The next day, I felt so tired, I got a terrible headache that made the room spin. Nauseating! Anyhow, it's Friday, and I finally think I've recovered from my sleep test. Would I do it again? No way! The funniest part was the girl who helped me get hooked up said "You look healthy. What are you doing in here?" To which, I responded, "I don't really know." Hey . . . it was an adventure and it's that what life's all about?

This picture was at 6:30am when I got home. I still had a bunch of tape and goop in my hair to clean out.


So Pete and Jake are not back yet from getting stitches, but I'm feeling tired, so off to bed I go!

**Update on Jake--Pete just called and said all was well. Typical of Pete, he thinks that if Jake's up to it, he could play football tomorrow . . . if only they had some special cap to help protect his head. Oh my . . . he's 10 and he'll have plenty of football games in his lifetime. I say, avoid doing stitches twice in two days, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what we end up doing tomorrow. MEN!!

4 comments:

awindowsillview said...

Are you kidding me? Sounds like an eventful night - it seems my kids always need stitches whenever Garrett's out of town and it's late at night...that's a great pic of Jake! So fun to get a peak into your fun life. You asked about Bonnie...her email is kbwebb@zoominternet.net. She just had her 4th baby - 1 boy and 3 girls and is doing great!

Anonymous said...

I've always wondered about how people actually sleep for sleep test, being hooked up to all that stuff. Love your pics! By the way, I tagged you on my blog.

Janie said...

WoW! I thought you had surgery with all those wires attached to you! Great picture, but how did you sleep?
How funny that your kids needed stitches this week. Abby needed stitches as well, after falling out of a tree. See my blog for details and picture.
It's kind of handy to not have to wait in the ER!

An said...

I had a sleep test at a sleep lab here in A2. It was very hard to sleep that night. I think I was pregnant with Esther. I was hoping beyond hope that I had a sleeping disorder, but I didn't...just tired all the time. So I get about 10 hours a night plus a 1-3 hour nap per day and I'm good to go! You're right about the irony of being in a sleep test and having so much stuff hooked up to you that you can't sleep at all. Plus being in a weird bed, plus I had to page them each time I needed to pee in the night, and they had to come unhook me, and that was a lot since I was pregnant!

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