I get diagnosed to have a sleep study because of my snoring

So A couple years ago, in getting ready to having a second child, I find myself sitting across from a doctor in the Sleep Clinic. I am being interviewed to determine whether I should take sleep study. I am answering his questions but I am a little tired.

“And do you take any medications to help you sleep? He asks.

“I take Sominex. About six of them per night.”

“In a row?” he asks.

“One right after another.” I say.

“And what have people said about your sleep?” he asks.

 “My wife says when I snore it’s irregular. And that when I inhale- the house contracts, and when I exhale, the house expands and all the drawers in the house open and slam shut in the rhythm of my snoring. Like one of those Merry Melodies cartoons. The house expands and contracts.”

He is about thirty years old. He doesn’t get the reference.

“You know, like an accordion.” I say, trying to help him, forgetting the advice of my dad once when I was younger, who said if I needed to explain a joke, I shouldn’t tell it in the first place. But I keep reaching to help him with the punch line – struggling to make it funny. “The house even sounds like an accordion, or a harmonica as someone blows or sucks on it.”

He will not validate me. My wife keeps reminding me when I find myself doing this at restaurants with the server, or in grocery stores with the cashiers, that not everyone wants to be a straight man in my little comedy show.

The doctor gives me a soft, faint smile. It’s kind of a Minnesota nice thing. I’ve seen it before. I‘ve done it to other people. It means nothing. It’s a kind of nudge to move on.

“Has she observed you ever stopping breathing?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I say. “As long as for about a minute.”

He nods and jots down a note on his questionnaire. “It’s probably not a whole minute.”

“That’s what she said.”

“I doubt it’s a whole minute.” He says.

We are sitting in his office having a pissing contest over what my wife said.

I wish she was here to take him on. If there’s one thing I have learned about my wife over the years, it’s this: Do not cross her.

She said it was about a minute. So, it was about a minute. It was.

She is a Scorpio – not that I believe in that kind of stuff.

And I am a Cancer. According to the Linda Goodman book on astrological signs we are a perfect match.

At least, we used to be Scorpio and Cancer. I don’t know what we are anymore now that evidently they’ve changed them all around. And for what purpose?

“Okay.” I concede.

“Still” he says, “It obviously was a significant amount of time of not breathing.”

“Yeah.” I say. “About a minute.”

He looks up at me, almost like he was thinking ‘fuck you it wasn’t a minute’.

But it was a minute. My wife said it was.

“Well, you know, you seem like a perfect candidate for the sleep study.”

I nod in agreement.

“But if you’re in doubt, there’s some things you can do to affirm my analysis.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“You can track how many times you wake up at night by doing this. Put a jar or a cup on your nightstand next to your bed. Put some pennies on the nightstand. Every time you get up to go to the bathroom or whatever, put a penny in the cup or jar. Pretty soon you’ll know how many awakenings you have.”

I must have been giving him a look of ‘I don’t understand’ because the next thing he said was “-By the number of pennies in the jar in the morning.”

I got what he meant. That sounded stupid.

“How about I just count them in my head?” I ask.

“Most people can’t remember the next day how many times they may have awoken. This helps keep track. For example, if there are ten pennies in the cup or jar, it means you woke up ten times.”

“Really?” I asked, using the Minnesota nice tone because I felt he was now talking down to me. I mean, I can count.

“Uh, huh.” He affirmed. This guy had no personality. Maybe he wasn’t getting enough sleep.

“Well, I think I kind of don’t need to do that. What else can you go by?”

“You’re an older male, you have irregular night sleep, you snore, you stop breathing, you take Sominex, and I can see your eyes have significant signs of sleep deprivation.”

He said I was an older male.

“When would you like to take the sleep study, we conduct them six nights a week.”

“Here?” I asked.

“Down the hall from here.” He said. “In our Sleep Clinic.”

“Do I have my own room?” I ask.

“Yeah. We monitor you and confirm our pre-diagnosis. Based on how you’ve answered these questions so far, it sounds like you would benefit from it.”

“Can I watch tv?”

“Sure. There’s a television in the room. But eventually we say lights out and turn it off.”

“So then what?” I ask.

“Then while you sleep we monitor your breathing, your heart rhythm, your brain activity, and your oxygen levels.”

“How?”

“By attaching about forty five sensors to your body before tucking you in.”

I stare at him.

“How do I sleep with all that stuff hooked up to me?”

He chuckles.

“A very normal question.” He says. “Believe me, people do eventually fall asleep. If you want I can prescribe an Ambien.”

I tried one of those once. My wife got a prescription to help her sleep through my snoring. She gave me one. Didn’t work at all. Kid stuff.

“I’ll bring a Xanax.” I say. “Or two.”

“Not too many though.” He says. ‘We want an accurate reading for the study. We want to make sure we capture a typical nights patterns of brain, heart and breathing activity.”

“Yeah.” I say. “I am usually sedated to all hell. It will be typical.’