Fishing Trip

Bryan & Jess (neighbors) and Steve took all the kids for a day of fishing in the Uintahs!  

I am sad I missed the fun. I had to do a sleep test at the clinic. 

(Yep, I went back to the sleep-wake clinic again.  The first step is to do the sleep tests.  This is where you sleep with a lot of electrodes and monitors on the head, nose, mouth, chest, eyes, and legs.  I did these tests about 12 years ago and received a diagnosis of mild narcolepsy at that time.  I was put on some meds which helped even out my sleep cycles at night and improved my daytime sleepiness, but I had to go off the meds when I became pregnant with Carolyn.  I then ignored my own sleep for the past decade.  I am ready to address it again, because my lifelong strategy of just pushing through the tiredness is no longer working well for me.  I do not yet know my results from the sleep test I just did, but interestingly, when we re-looked at the labs from before, the doc pointed out that the overall apnea score was only slightly elevated (about 8), but the apnea score during REM was sky-high (nearly 40).  10 years ago, the standard practice did not split out the overall and REM periods, so we did not address any apnea.  Over the past few years, I have also had to get a couple of crowns because I cracked my teeth from the pressure of grinding.  This too can be evidence of fairly serious apnea.  Teeth grinding often occurs when the body is stressed and trying to open the airway.  Who knows what this all means, but I do know that I have to find a way to get more restorative sleep.  Falling asleep mid conversation is not acceptable.)