So I am sitting in the office of the sleep doctor going over my test results. They had originally told me it would be about a week or two before the doctor would call, but I actually got a call the afternoon after I had taken the sleep study. The doctor indicated I should come in right away.
It's that same guy that I annoyed and who annoyed me as well during our last visit.
“First of all, it is as I expected.” He said, holding a three or four page document in his hands, sharing it with me.
What was he expecting, I wondered.
“Okay.” I said.
“You are definitely a candidate for the CPAP.” He continued. “They turned off the lights at ten twenty eight point twenty four seconds and let you sleep unassisted by any device for three hours.”
“Right.” I say.
“During that time, you never got out of Stage two sleep. You were also in WASO for about twenty eight minutes of time during that period.”
“Right.” I say. “What is WASO?”
“Wake time after sleep onset.”
“Right.” I say. “What matters about that?”
“It just means you’re not asleep during that time. It means you’re awake. Some of that does naturally increase as you get older, you are what, forty nine?"
“Forty-seven.” I quickly correct him.
“It’s just that much less of sleep for you to sort of re-charge your batteries.”
“Okay.” I agree.
How could he get my age wrong? Didn’t he see the date of birth up on the upper right hand side of the sheet? For Christ sake I saw it and I was sitting across from him.
He was still talking. I tried to think of a jab I could hit him with. Maybe something about his recessive hairline.
“But really, the important thing is you never left stage two sleep, you never went into REM.” he says.
I almost make a joke about Losing My Religion (REM the band-won a grammy for it). This is the same guy, though, who didn’t get my accordion snoring drawers opening and shutting joke from before. So he probably wouldn’t get my REM joke, either.
It is possible that I am not as funny as I think, but this is just guerrilla comedy – comedy done on the fly to a captive impromptu audiences. Anyway my mind wanders further into the REM thing and I start thinking of the song “It’s the end of the world as we know it.”
I keep all this to myself. It is not worth trying it out on this guy. I hear enough crickets chirping in my life. Besides, he’s going bald.
“But here’s more data.” He keeps talking. On the sheet I see a bunch of measurements of numbers on the left side, and on the right side under the header LAB NORMAL RANGE I notice all of my numbers are either below normal (time in Stage four, for example) or above normal (Apnea and other respiratory disturbances for example). “You had one hundred and forty five obstructive apneac events during that three hours – or about one per minute.”
“That’s high isn’t it?” I ask.
“Yes. And they lasted an average of twenty seconds each.”
“That’s bad isn’t it?” I ask.
“It’s not good or bad, I don’t want you to take away – ok, it’s bad.” He says.
“Okay.”
“The good news is there weren’t any spontaneous leg movements during this time.”
“That is good news.” I say. “How is that good news?”
“Well, it means you don’t have PLMD.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” I ask.
“Yeah.” he says.
“What’s PLMD?”
“Periodic Leg Movement Disorder.”
"Wow. What's that?" I ask.
“It’s actually quite serious.” He says, “It’s also known as Restless Leg Disorder, and believe me, you wouldn’t want it. You feel a tingling and you feel as if pinpricks are penetrating your lower leg, and you feel the need to relieve yourself of the pain by moving and jerking your legs. It’s very uncomfortable.”
The hypochondriac that I am begins to feel pins prickling on my calves. I shudder and kick my legs, one of them knocking the front of one of his legs.
We both adjust our position.
“It not only causes you problems, but obviously, older people like yourself-“
That was kind of a dig. He remembered me correcting my age downward and I think he is pissed that I just kicked him.
“-older people like yourself have their leg movement symptoms increase, and you end up starting flailing around and kicking your bed partner, so it disrupts their sleep also.”
Okay, so I got the memo. It could be worse. Then he continued.
“So then ,the CPAP device was placed on you at about one thirty am. It was left on you until you woke up at six am. You were in REM for about two hours. Frankly, it’s probably the first time in a long time you’ve been in that much uninterrupted REM. You were in stage three sleep for about a half an hour. That’s good REM.”
“You know I really did feel refreshed after that sleep, truthfully, I felt wide awake when I hit the road to go to work. It was good REM.” I agreed.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” He said. “Zero obstructive apneas during the whole time. And look at your oxygen levels-without the mask on, you were at about sixty three percent saturation during some of the time, and after the mask was on you never when below a saturation level of eighty five percent. This definitely helped you.”
There were more numbers he went over with me, but you catch my drift.
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