Tag Archive for 'cpap'

Charles Gibson and I Discuss Our Sketching

Published on July 19, 2009 in Baby Boomer. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .


Charles Gibson, anchor of ABC Evening News, and I discussed our sketching.

In my dreams.

When you have sleep apnea, (I do) and you don’t use a CPAP (I do use one) you wake up 50-70 times every hour. Yeah, about once a second!  Apeneaphobes miss out on dreaming, because they miss out on the deep dream-state  sleep.

Even using a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) I hardly remember my dreams.

I remember this one. Have fun with the dream analysis.

Charlie Gibson and I were laying in bed, discussing some very important topic. He was referring to his notes and I was referring to mine.

I looked over and happen to notice that he had a sketch of himself. I commented that I also had a sketch of myself.

Except his sketch was much much better. It actually looked like him as he is now.
My self-portrait hasn’t changed since college:
skinnysketch

I never had a cleft chin, I just always thought they were cool. I’ve always worn button down shirts and glasses with long hair. Fairly accurate – from college age through about age 35.

This is closer to what I look like now:

fatsketch

Chubby cheeks, lines through my face, still have hair I can comb – on my head, my back, my ears, my nose, my ass. Back, crack and sack hair!

I commented to Charlie, that as good as our sketches were, they couldn’t hold a candle to Katie’s. Katie is an artist. This is her avatar – not really a self-portrait, unless she is a LOLCat doing jazz hands.

katieavatar

lolcatjazzhands

We agreed Katie’s was best.

I rolled over on my stomach and planned on going to sleep. (Remember, this is a dream!) and as I rolled over, I thought “I feel sorry for Charlie because Walter Cronkite died.”

As I rolled over, I noticed there was another guy in bed with us. I was in between.

I then did my corporate office routine:

Awakened, Gottup and Peed.

It was 3:57. Like the gun.

Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to bed loaded.

The Only Rebel I Have Left In Me Got Me Thrown Out of a Sleep Lab.

Published on July 1, 2008 in Baby Boomer. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

I spent the night sleeping in the most expensive room I have stayed at in the last fifteen years. Thing is? It was a pretty institutional looking room. The service was fantastic however: one on one. I never saw another face from check-in to check-out.
I went to the hospital to sleep.
The last time I stayed in such an expensive room was my last sleep study 15 years ago. Since it had been so long ago the doctor wanted a more recent one. Which we both know is bogus, the doctor had a boat payment due and needed some extra revenue. But to keep peace in the family, I slept at the hospital last night.
Backstory:
I was supposed to have the sleep study done a couple weeks ago, but the tech called security and had me thrown off the premises.
I can be very cranky when it comes to waiting in doctor’s offices. But this wasn’t one of those times. As a matter of fact, my previous sleep study was a pretty neat experience, so I was thinking up clever lines and knew I could get a blog post out of the deal. Lines like: my last sleep study was so long ago it was interns with polaroids… they send me home with a Hoover hooked up to blow rather than suck… ba dump bump, ching!

The appointment was at 9:30 p.m. I was ten minutes early, walked into a totally vacant waiting room. No instructions on what I should do, so I park it and pick up the U.S. News to read about the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam.

I could hear voices, so after ten minutes and at my appointment time, I stepped to the counter and called out, heeeellllloooo??? Nobody appears. At  9:40, I decide to give it another try and raised my voice to slightly above normal speaking – like if you were trying to get the attention of someone in a room down a hallway.

Mr. Nebraska Cornhusker (that’s what was written on his faded red polo shirt) came through the door and held up his hand and announced “quiet, I have people sleeping back here.  Since the clinic didn’t open until 9 p.m. he was lying. He did a 180 spin on his heelies and went back into the inner sanctum. I strolled around the office, looked at some patient files and charts laying on the counter. Check the appointment print-out for the next day to see who was coming in, their Social Security Number and their reason for their appointment, while I plotted my next move.

I poked my head through the door and asked  the Cornhusker if he was going to help me or not. He threw a gen-u-wine hissy fit. “I’m calling Dr. K” he said much louder than I said “heeeeeeeelllllllllooooo.” I asked him who Dr. K was since that wasn’t my doc. “Dr. K owns the place” I was told, and then he added that he was calling security.

Security! A mall cop! He was going to call a mall cop! He was going to have me thrown out by a mall cop!

Since Cornhusker just so loopy, it was easy for me to be calm. There was no question who was in the right. I said I would wait for Security and had a seat and got very calm. Mr. Hospital Security was very professional, I had my say, Mr. Cornhusker had another little hissy fit when I tried to close the door between us and him because I “didn’t own that door.”

And that’s how I got thrown out of a sleep lab.

I asked my Doc to get me into another lab, which she did.

I can’t say I had a restful night, but I think something good will come out of the study. If nothing else, I tried a new CPAP mask that was much better than the model I’m using now.