Adventures in Sleep Apnea

As many of you know, I've been working on getting my Commercial Driver's License. Mr. Janney has already obtained his and starts his new job on Monday. Because I've had difficulties passing my road test, I had to file for an extension. Minor technicalities.

One requirement to even get a CDL permit, is a DOT physical. Because I met enough requirements for sleep apnea, I had/have six months to get tested and if diagnosed with it to get treatment. Once I got our medical coverage reinstated, I was able to get tested fairly quickly. The diagnosis was positive, I have 'mild sleep apnea'. My mother asked if that was like being 'borderline diabetic' to which I answered, 'probably'.

Many of the symptoms I live with could be attributed to my underactive thyroid. But since the sleep study said I have it, if I want to get my CDL then I had to get a C-PAP machine and use it at leat 70% of the time. So, once again, after I got my medical assistance straightened out, I had the new machine pretty quickly. I picked it up yesterday afternoon and began using it last night.

It's going to take some getting used to. It wasn't so much the air being pushed into my nose, but the mask itself. It just felt - funny. I'll give it a few more nights to see if it's something I can get used to or if I need to change masks. Mr. Janney wanted to know how I'd slept...'ok, I guess. I still woke up a few times.  I dreamt a lot...' He just laughed at that. And then laughed harder as I described some of the weirdness I'd dreamt.

sounds a bit Darth Vader-ish

He said he woke up once himself and couldn't get back to sleep because of the noise of either the machine or my breathing. The few times I woke up, it felt like my nose had slipped out of where it was supposed to be because I had air blowing straight up in my eyes.  So tonight when I go to put my astronaut mask on, I'll see if the straps needs tweaking. Like hubby reminded me, I don't want to get it too tight because that'll make the nose bone hurt and who wants that to happen??

The kind lady at Med Depot who set me up with everything, looked at my face to determine mask size - and tilted her head and said, "Everything's perfect." No one has ever looked at my face and said that before! It was a bit of an ego boost, even though it's just for a face mask fitting.

I'm only going to post this here, because my co-blogger on Broads was able to post over there again. If she continues, I will strive to make separate blog posts again. Until I can pass my road test and I head out on the road too...but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I'm signing off now, because I'm thirsty and need to get back to my edits. Everyone have a great day!