I was dreading it all day.
I moaned, complained and was generally in a foul mood on that day.
Why this? Why there? How am I supposed to do this?
The clock ticked. It was 3 p.m. and then it was 5. I headed home and grabbed a cold turkey sandwich and some Cheetos. I had to have something in my stomach.
Then came 7:15. I fired up my car, cranked up the music as loud as I could and headed to Merced. It’s probably the slowest I’ve ever driven to Merced, and I was in the Camaro.
I even cased the place. My fears were confirmed. There were cars in front of the office in the sprawling medical plaza. Nowhere else were there cars in front of the rowed medical offices that are normally open during the daytime.
I pushed the buzzer on the door.
“It’s open,” said a voice from the other side.
Reluctantly, I opened the door and went inside.
The smiling nurse greeted me and confirmed I was there for my sleep study.
For nearly two years, I had been waiting to get this appointment after a doctor suggested maybe I had sleep apnea. It seems my heart stops here and there during the night. Nothing uncommon, mind you, but troubling nonetheless.
My heart doctor, too, suggested I do the sleep study. (More on that in a bit.)
I had been in the Merced office a few months ago in preparation for this and when they took me back into the bowels of the place, I spotted a bed in a room. I knew my fate was sealed.
The nurse led me to my guest accommodations for the night and then instructed me to get ready to be wired up for the study. But wait, don’t I need to take my hearing aids out and my partial?
Go ahead, she said, patiently waiting.
Once that was done, I went into another room where this mass of wires was sprawled out on the table. There were also those sticky things they put on you where the wires hook up.
Oh boy, this seems fun.
What I didn’t know is how many of those they were going to put on my head — with gel. It took some time for me to get wired for sound and when it was done, the nurse led me back to my bedroom.
During the conversation while being wired, I asked her how long she had been doing this
“Four months,” she said. “I’m a newbie.”
In many ways, that was good because I would imagine someone who has been doing it for many years might be a little less nice given the mindset of most patients.
She also informed me there would be an open intercom in the room as well as cameras recording my every move. What would happen if a scratched something or let the gas fly?
“Lights out by 10,” she told me.
Geez, I’m used to 11 or later. How will I sleep?
At about 9:45, I decided to turn the lights out and see what I could do. One thing I noticed right away was how cold it was in that room. I was shivering.
I mentioned it over the intercom, which sounded more like one of those old drive-thru units. It didn’t help my hearing aids were out.
I don’t know if she acknowledged it or not, but I do know it remained frigid in the room. In hindsight, I think that might have been intentional so I would pull the covers over my head and maybe I’d fall fast asleep.
To my amazement, it seemed to work. Even with the ragged blinds that let in light from the parking lot, I managed to go right to sleep. I do remember rolling around in the middle of the night, but not much else.
And then came the “knock” and rush in the door.
“It’s time to get up,” she said, still smiling.
It was 4:15 a.m.
I stumbled out of the bed before she sat me back down and said she was going to issue commands to me over the pathetic speaker system.
“Wiggle your toes. Move your eyes up and down. Take a deep breath and hold it.”
Once that was done, it was back to that room and time to rip off the wires and sticky pads. She offered to let me leave the pads on and remove them in the shower at my house. But being the manly man, I said go ahead and rip them off.
She did.
By about 4:35, I was putting on my shoes and they were escorting me out the door. I would learn they work 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., so it was closing time and I was in the way.
I will say this, anyone who has to do this should get a ride because at 4:45 a.m. after just waking up, nobody should be driving. Yet I was and McDonald’s wasn’t even open so I just headed back to Mariposa — carefully.
In reality, what I feared wasn’t really that bad. I did sleep and now I await the results.
“They will call me, right?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “but if they don’t, call them.”
No way. That’s their responsibility and I refuse to have to cater to the medical people whose job it is to contact patients and make appointments.
As of this writing, I’m still waiting — and I’m not too concerned about it.
Which leads me back to the heart doctor. It turns out I do have an issue with my heart stopping on occasion in the night. As I said, it’s not that uncommon, but certainly concerning.
There is a technique called ablation in which they do a procedure and basically “trick” your heart into operating correctly. This is critical for me because it would mean no more blood thinners. I hate taking them and they give me raging nightmares.
It’s the only drug I currently take, having beaten high cholesterol.
So why not go ahead and do the ablation and be done with it? You have already placed a heart monitor under my skin to keep track of things.
The heart doctor in Fresno said I’m just not in bad enough shape for Medicare to approve the procedure.
The good news is I’m apparently doing fairly well otherwise. The bad news is, I have to get worse off in order to get a procedure that is needed.
And that is our health care system.
Wouldn’t it make sense to do the preventative care in order to save in the long run?
It would sure seem to be logical, but from my recent medical experiences, logic is no longer part of the equation.
But cold sleep sure is.
Greg Little is editor of the Mariposa Gazette and can be reached at greg@mariposagazette.com
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