Ramblings, rumblings, grumblings, and rambling grumbly rumblings.

I had high hopes for the CPAP  machine, but I'm sleeping worse with it than without it. The constant physical nagging of the mask, for want of a better metaphor, is waking me two and three times a night. That's right on a par with how I sleep without the thing, so there's not a whole lot of benefit there.

I tried the nasal "pillows", and found two problems. My mouth would drop open, waking me, and condensation would build up inside the silicon form and either run down my face or, worse, get snorted up into my sinuses causing burning and irritation. 

I tried the nose-to-chin mask. My face must be built oddly because the mask would cut in just below my cheekbones and cause soreness after a while. In the middle of the night the mask would begin to slip, and the leaking air would wake me.

I made a cotton/lycra chin strap to hold my mouth shut and went back to the nasal pillows. The strap worked, but I'd forgotten about the condensation: I got a snoot-full sometime around 3:00am, so off it came. For some reason, also, my nose feels like I've been punched, hard. Must've been the way the thing was sitting overnight, I don't know.

Here's what I do know: I'm grumpy as hell this morning because I slept badly.

There's going to be a CPAP machine for sale soon, if anybody wants one.

It doesn't matter where they happen, sleep studies suck. This one sucked less than the last one because the tech was young and cute and personable, and my arthritis wasn't acting up so laying in a strange bed wasn't painful. For all that, though, it's still lying in a strange bed hooked up to wires with tape pulling on your leg hairs.

For those of you, dear friends, who want a review of the Tempurpedic mattress, you'll have to look elsewhere. My pulmonologist, for all his many talents, does not know the difference between memory foam and regular old closed-cell foam rubber. It was not a comfortable bed.

There is blessing in that I was able to sleep with the CPAP machine. The delivery system wasn't a full face mask, it was like a scuba regulator for your nose. Large-ish and cumbersome, it took some getting used to but it wasn't unbearable. The machine was silent, which surprised me.

It was not a restful night, and I'm draggin' ass today. I hope they can learn something useful.

We'll know the results in a week or so.

I did eventually sleep last night, but for only a couple hours. I think it was Katie's coughing that was keeping me up. If I can get to sleep before it starts, I can fall back to sleep; if she's coughing before I sleep, then there is no sleep.

Naturally I don't feel good this morning, sluggish and irritable, with reflexes like trying to move through water. As I was driving in to work, I was not comforted by the thought that there were - just a guess here - at least six other drivers on the road who feel like I do and who could be on the same stretch of road as me. What a party that would be.

I'll be fine by afternoon, I just have to get there.

Saturday I got something kinda special: I got to nap with my boy.  Since turning two he's been All About Mommy.  Saturday, I was beat from lots of activity in the morning, he was tired Just Because, so I grabbed him and we went to nap for a while.  He's a cuddler, insofar as if you move away for some comfort space, he scoots in; this process continues until you either accept the proximity or fall off the far side of the bed. 

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