The intent of having a sleep study is to measure how well a person is breathing during sleep. Because Megan's diagnosis includes energy issues and how well her body is able to make the chemical reactions necessary in order for her bodily functions to (well) function, sleep for restorative purposes is very important for Megan to be able to "recharge" her short battery life, so to speak.
For this particular study, we were curious as to how well her oxygen levels stay at healthy levels throughout her sleep, how often she has episodes of apnea (momentary stops in breathing), how deeply she breathes, and how much work her muscles are performing to take breaths.
Megan's sleep study was in Indianapolis because that is where her pulmonologist is located. (FYI, all of her specialists are in Indianapolis.) Anyway, our appointment was for 8:00pm. We got there and settled in, met the technician who performed the test, and got started hooking Megan up to the machinery needed to measure all of these important things about how she breathes during sleep.
When we got done getting everything ready, Megan looked tired. And, I said to myself, "WOW! She is actually going to go to sleep."
I think that was my mistake. Because 30 minutes later, she was not resting anymore. I mean, really, we expect kids to sleep the whole night looking like this.
Those are the hands of the lady that came in every few minutes - all night long - to try to fix her probes. Remember I said that Megan got agitated?
You can't count them very well but, yes, there are three things measuring oxygen levels inside her nostrils, with tape all over her face, and brain wave probes all over her head. Plus, all of it is bound up like on one of those cartoons where the character has a toothache. Also not pictured are two bands, one around her chest and one around her waist, to measure how her muscles move when she breathes.
Why on earth would they have the nicest parent beds in the hospital in a place where sleeping doesn't occur?
Well, the sleep study ended at 5:30am. (Yes, because the techs work from 7pm to 7am and they have to make it look like you were never there and get everything ready for the next patient by then.) I called Ken to come get us (he and Monica were at a nearby hotel) and Megan was still kind of restless. Then, we got her in bed to get some rest before check out time and our trip home. Just after her head hit the pillow, Megan looked like this.
Why couldn't she do that just hours before?
Oh yeah, I remember now. She looked like this.
1 comment:
Oh heavens! It's 2009! They can't figure out a better way to do a sleep study!?
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