The Vampires Strike Back!

For reasons that I only partially understood, I found myself back in the clutches of the sleep center vampires. Sure, I was there because the doctor wanted me calibrated for a C-PAP machine, but I knew the unsleeping denizens of that realm thirsted for another draught of my blood!

The preliminaries were almost identical to what I'd experienced the first time. I had a different technician, but all the same sensors were placed on my body in all the same spots. Then we went through the C-PAP masks. There were three different types, two of which covered only the nose. Since I tend to breath through my mouth, I really only had one option: a mask that covered most of my face.

So I laid on my back and tried to get used to the pressure of the incoming air. Sometimes the near-constant flow would cause me to forget that I could breathe out just fine against the slight pressure. When I finally started getting sleepy I rolled over. That was when the fun began.

A small stream of air hit me in the center of my right eye. The mask had shifted just a bit and air was now leaking out the side of the mask. I ended up lying on my back again and tried to shift the mask back into place. And shift it again. And again. No matter what I did, that stream of air flowed into my eyeball. After a few minutes of this the tech asked over the intercom if I was having problems. I told her what was happening and she came in and adjusted the mask.

Inevitably, perhaps, I developed an itch on my nose. I unthinkingly raised my hand to scratch it, only to encounter the plastic of the mask. Since I knew they didn't want me fussing with it just to ease the itch, I did my best to ignore it. For the most part I was successful, but it would return several times over the night.

I tried to sleep on my back, and I must have done so for a while because my watch said it was 11:30 p.m. and I in no way felt like I had lain there an hour. I rolled to my side again, and more air leaks started. Then again on my back. I tried to adjust the position of my head to increase the tension of the straps and stop the leaks. I had only minimal success with this. Once again my tech noticed and adjusted the mask for a second time.

I had been alternately dreading and looking forward to this night. I had steeled myself for not getting a lot of Z's, but even so, my inability to sleep in any great quantity was starting to piss me off. I'd had Darth Vader jokes going through my mind all day in anticipation of the mask, but now as I lay in the darkness with the air hissing into my mouth I realized I had the wrong movie. I wasn't Darth Vader, I was Bane from The Dark Knight Rises.

My mask and its straps even kind of resembled Bane's, and when I talked, I sounded about as incomprehensible. After midnight I really began to understand the villain's motivation. I was frustrated enough that I, too, wanted to pillage Gotham and break the back of the Batman. Bane wasn't really evil, he was just sick and tired of his mask!

By now the glowing dots on my watch said it was after 1 a.m. The tech had told me to try to relax when she'd tightened the mask the second time, and I did my best. Finally being able to roll over without any leaks helped a lot. It was then that I felt the strangest sensation. As my mouth and throat muscles relaxed, the pressure of the air expanded that passageway to the limits of what my flesh would allow. It didn't hurt, but it felt decidedly odd, like I could be a sword-swallower.

The next thing I knew it was 6 a.m. and the tech was waking me over the intercom. I had a split second of panic where the air pressure from the mask made me feel like I couldn't breathe, combined with a bit of claustrophobia from having this plastic thing gripping my head like the face-hugger in Alien. The tech announced that she was going to turn down the air, and as the pressure dropped I could suddenly exhale and the fear subsided.

When she came in to unhook me she said that once I had fallen asleep I responded very well to the machine. Then I washed up, grabbed the first of several cups of honest-to-God caffeinated coffee (I usually drink decaf, but I was really dragging), and went home to get ready for work.

I knew that there would be an adjustment period as I got used to the C-PAP machine, but the experience of my second visit has me worried about just how long that will take. I haven't gotten my machine yet, but it should be here in just a few days. I'm hoping that using it in my bed without all of the other wires, and being able to adjust the mask myself, will make it a little easier. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Time will tell. Until then, someone had better tell the Batman to stay out of my way.

My Night With The Vampires

I've had other family members who have done the whole sleep study thing, but it was never something I really thought I'd be doing. Nonetheless I found myself waiting outside the sleep study center one night waiting to begin this strange experience. There was an assortment of people there waiting for the test with me. I was the second youngest, the youngest being in his late thirties. The oldest was a nice lady in her eighties.

At 8:45pm they let us in and we were assigned our rooms. I was given room number 2, where I met my technician. She was a woman in her fifties with some sort of Eastern Bloc accent. She had an array of cables and other stuff all prepared on a rolling table. She told me about the process for the evening, and left me to change into my jammies.

Once I was changed I had some time to kill, so I went down to the common room. They had a fridge full of snacks and drinks. While I was feeling the desire for some orange juice, they didn't have any. The wife would have liked the shelf full of Snack Pack pudding, but I ended up settling for a water. Only a few minutes passed until my tech called me in to get ready.

First, I had to snake some cables down the neck of my shirt and my very stylish Christmas penguin jammy pants (see my Facebook stream for very flattering pictures of me in this outfit). These would eventually be connected to sensors attached to my shins and would be tracking my leg movements.

Then a series of sensors were placed across my upper chest pretty much at clavicle level. These would monitor my heart rate during the night. One of these I would be very aware of as the night progressed.

Then it was time to move to my face. I ended up with a sensor under my eye to record eye movement, and two more on my chin, which I think was to monitor snoring. Then she moved onto my head.

She started by measuring my head. First around the circumference, then from the top and down the sides. She made some marks on my scalp with a grease pencil, and I felt like Charlie Brown being used as a model for Lucy's jack o' lantern. Then a number of sensors were affixed to my head with a stuff that looked like library paste. These were to monitor my sleeping patterns. I asked her if my current hairstyle made things easier, and she said that bald heads were the ideal. She also said that women with long hair were the most difficult.

Lastly a couple of elastic straps were put around my torso. One around my manly pecs, and the other around my six pack abs (hey, they're in there somewhere!). These also would have wires later that would record my breathing.

Then I was handed a small box with about thirty multicolored wires plugged into it, all of which were from the various sensors attached to my body. I felt like a low-tech Darth Vader, as the colors of the wires made me think if the Sith Lord's chest plate.

I had about a half hour to kill before bedtime because my tech had to wire up someone else. The box had a neck strap making me mobile, so I went back down to the common room. I wanted to take a picture of myself in all my Vader-ness and post it on Facebook. I took the pic, but for some reason I had very little signal, and I don't think I got the pic posted until morning.

I chatted with a few of the other peeps there and discovered that one of them snored so bad that his wife moved out of the bedroom three years ago. He was hoping to get treatment that would resolve that. Another guy only got a few of hours sleep a night, in 1-2 hour increments. He would keep waking up and looked absolutely exhausted. He had apparently been that way for a few years. This was the youngest guy there, probably in his late thirties.

When the time came to start I got the wires that connected to the straps on my torso and the box. Then I was given my last piece of equipment, a tube that ran around my face with two smaller tubes that inserted into my nostrils. I was told this was to measure the amount and temperature of my breathing. I expect it didn't tell them too much, other than the fact that I am mainly a mouth breather.

So a large cable is now attached to my Vader-box and it is set on the bed next to me. I am lying down and I'm ready for this to begin. It was only then that I noticed that there was a camera set into the ceiling. I'm sure they had a nice shot of my butt earlier as I changed into my jammies. As the tech left the room, she turned the lights off and told me that we'd begin biometric exercises in 5 minutes.

I lay in the darkness trying not to fall asleep as I stared at the faint red lights the camera emitted that I had no doubt gave them a perfect green-shaded image of me. I also spent some of the time looking at my glowing red finger, which was illuminated eerily due to a blood oxygen monitor. Finally her voice came over the intercom with a series of commands I had to perform to calibrate the sensors: Open your eyes, close your eyes, blink five times, make a snoring sound, move your feet, and so on. Then she told me the study was beginning and to have a good night.

This really felt kinda strange, and I thought about what an unusual job this was. The techs (there were about four) stayed up all night and watched us sleep. It struck me this would be a perfect job for a vampire. The hours are perfect and lots of snacks readily available (and sleeping!) However, as far as I can tell no one fed on me. Still, if I ever become a bloodsucker I know where I'm going for employment.

While I felt I could have slept at the drop of the hat as soon as my tech turned the light off, now after the exercises I was pretty alert. I could hear the man in the room next to me going through the same routine. For some reason there was also a dehumidifier in the hallway that was keeping up a steady chugging. I could also hear a TV for some reason. My room was well away from the common room where there was a TV, so I don't know if it was from there or the monitoring room which was just across the hall. All in all it took me a while to get to sleep.

The first bit of trouble occurred when I rolled over on my side. Apparently the nose tube came out, and the tech had to come in to fix it. She didn't turn on the light, but it spilled in from the hallway. I had almost been asleep before getting wakened, then I got a major bout of the itchies and had to scratch several places before I could sleep again. I was wakened again briefly when I rolled over again and the nose tube apparently shifted again. This time she taped it to my cheeks, and I was able to get right back to sleep.

After that I pretty much slept OK. I would wake when I rolled over because one of the sensors on my chest would get pulled by the wire, and it would hurt. When I woke up what I hoped was hours later I had to use the bathroom, but wasn't sure how late it was. The study would end at 6am, and I wondered if it was close. The complications was that if I had to use the facilities then I had to call the tech in to disconnect my box. I really didn't want to go through all of that because I knew it would just wake me up. I couldn't reach my phone, which was charging on the floor, to see the time. I had stupidly thought I wouldn't need my watch, but I would have appreciated it's glowing dial then.

In the end I fell back asleep without going, and not much time must have passed before my tech bade me good morning, announcing it was 6am and the study was over. I had to do another set of the exercises, the same as before, which did a fine job of waking me up. Then she came in and took all of the electrodes off of me, which took almost no time at all.

I was left alone to get ready to leave. Earlier when she was setting me up, the tech had asked me if I wanted to take a shower. I had demurred, as I was only 5 minutes or so from home. When I looked at myself in the mirror I knew why she had asked. Remember the stuff that looked like library paste? Well, I still had big goops of the stuff on my scalp. The washcloth provided would easily handle my needs, but if I actually have any hair I certainly would have needed a shower.

After that I only had to fill out a short survey, get dressed, grab a cup of coffee, and drive home. It was strange driving home at 6:30am by myself. I felt like I got enough of a night's sleep, but after dinner that night my energy quickly faded so I obviously didn't sleep very well there. Which, of course, was sort of the point.

I'll find out the results later this month, and then I'll know if I have to get some kind of machine. What I do know is after I'm done with NaNoWriMo and the podcast for Stolen Time I need to change my habits to get more sleep. I'll post another update once the results come in.

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2012

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, me maties! I've been too busy plunderin' and chansin' wenches to prepare anything for this year, but here's a few bits o' internet goodness I found for ye:

George Harrison (yes, that one!) sings "The Pirate Song". Skip to 1:50 if you don't want to see him and Eric Idle being silly.



Every bloomin' year some of ye ninja people come out of the woodwork to say ninjas be better than pirates, but ye be wrong! So here be a song that Captain Dan & The Scurvy Crew put together to explain why.



And finally the St. Ignatius Men's Chorus provide a little class to the subject o' pirating!


I hope you be enjoying the day, and don't forget to be talkin' like a pirate or you'll feel me cutlass!

~ Captain Gizmo

Fun Words

A recent Sheldon comic made note of the fact that sassafras is such a fun word, and I totally. Just try to say "sassafrass" with a frown. I Double-dog Dare ya!

That got me thinking of some other words I get a special kick out of saying or hearing:

• Penitent (preferably in my best Sean Connery voice)
• Zerubbabel (I almost named the daughter this)
• Penultimate
• Hasenpfeffer
• Schadenfreude

So what are some of your favorite words to say? Leave a comment and let me know.

Calling All Tourist-Elks!

While driving home from the U.P. (Eh!) I saw a sign that read "For tourist-elk herd information, please call...". I was glad that we saw fit to provide vacationing elk an easy way to find a local herd. It's important that they find a herd-away-from-herd while they're on the road.

Then @pianoeditor suggested that maybe this applied to Elks. As in The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Perhaps they have random "herds" that gather in empty fields wearing funny hats. (Author's note: I do not know for a fact that BPOE members actually wear funny hats, but they should. I would never join a fraternal order that didn't wear funny hats.) I'm envisioning a woodsy cocktail party here.

Either way I suspect that a tourist-elk is would be a memorable thing to see. So keep an eye peeled as you travel America's highways. Tourist-Elks are everywhere.