Pittsburgh
January 2017
I’ve got some stuff going on. One doctor thinks I have sleep apnea. That’s when you stop breathing while you are sleeping. I’m thinking that as long as you start up again, what’s the problem? But they say that it can affect your waking life too; make you sleepy during the day, mush up your concentration, make you irritable.
I am none of these and the doctor is stupid and if you have a problem with this, go pound salt, it’s your problem, not mine.
The doc said, go for a sleep study. I said, I don’t have any of these symptoms. He said, you never know. So I go for a sleep study.
I report at 9 p.m. Ren meets me at the door and immediately shows me to my room. “Think of it as a hotel room,” he says. Ren takes my blood pressure. It’s pretty good. He has me breathe into a tube. That’s pretty good too.
I had already been prepped to bring my pajamas. I don’t have pajamas so I’m wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. Good enough.
Ren wheels in a cart and fusses with something on the top shelf. He slathers paste on my body in a dozen different locations and then affixes an electrode at each location. Skinny, long, colored wires snake from each connector, through my pant legs, out the collar of my shirt, or hanging from my head and face. The wires converge in a box arranged with three dozen jacks, each with a coded set of letters, undecipherable to a normal person. I wonder if Ren connects these leads incorrectly if I might end up sleeping upside down.
Once I’m hooked up, Ren shows me a selection of masks, one of which I will wear. These are not novelty masks, or I would have requested the Hulk. There is the nasal face piece, the nasal prong, nasal “pillows,” the nasal face piece with chin strap, the oral, the total face, and the one I choose, because my mouth tends to fall open when I sleep, the full face piece.
Ren places the mask over my nose and mouth and tightens the straps that go around my head. He seems very calm.
Ever snorkel? Remember the first time when you put the mouth piece in place and then ducked your face under the water? Not easy to take that first breath. Your mind says no and your body agrees. You are convinced that if you inhale, you will be sucking water into your lungs. You’ve just got to give it a shot. This feels like that, without the water.
Soon I begin to breath normally. Ren invites me to lie down so he can affix the rest of the wires and plug my full face piece into the hose through which I will receive a continuous positive pressure of air throughout the night.
I look a little like an alien. No, I look a lot like an alien. Had I chosen the nasal fixture, I could look like a donkey.
Anyway, fully equipped, dressed for success, I try to tell Ren that I must urinate, but with the full face piece in place, I can’t even hear my own voice. I pull the mask off my face to speak and immediately there is a loud whooshing of air blowing on my chin. I say as fast as I can, “I have to pee,” and put the mask back in place.
“That’s okay,” and he takes off the mask. I go pee.
What I learn during the night is that the provided mattress is some kind of memory foam. You lie on it for a while and it conforms to your body. Great, as long as you don’t move. I want to turn on my side but my butt is in a deep divot and I feel like I’m trying to climb out of a hole. I mean, it is hazardous enough with all the electric wires and oxygen tubes. I wonder if a couple of electrodes might pull out and set the whole place on fire. All the ingredients are here.
I’m now lying in bed with a blanket up to my chest. Ren asks, “How are you doing?” With my mask in place, I know that if I respond verbally, no one will hear me. I give him a sarcastic thumbs up. Then he says, while I lie there in an uncomfortable bed in an unknown place, pasted wires and tubes connected at their other ends to a computer being stared at by someone who will stay up all night watching me sleep, knowing that sometime in the night I will have to pee again, smelling the faint, somewhat unpleasant odor of the plastic face piece… with all this, Ren says, “Okay, you can go to sleep now. Rest well.”
Really?