Today I had my initial appointment with the sleep doctor. Since I snore a lot, my GP wanted me to have a sleep study done. The sleep doctor works in the cardiology office we’ve been going to with Brad. Since it’s a familiar place that I know Alice is OK with, I decided to take her.
I walked in and started talking with the person at the desk. I had to give her some paperwork, my ID, and my insurance card, and she had to ask me some questions. While this is taking place, I hear a man and a woman yelling “ma’am” at me over and over again! I knew they were yelling at me, but I decided to ignore it because I was busy checking in.
When I was done checking in, I continued to ignore it. The waiting room has one main area and two small side rooms. I decided to go wait in one of the completely empty small side rooms. As I walked in, the shouting man and woman got up from their seats in the main waiting area and followed me into the side room!
The man clearly had developmental disabilities, so I don’t blame him. His mom was with him, and she is the one that I blame. I sat down, still ignoring them “ma’am” calls and started to get out my phone.
The mom comes over to me and asks me Alice’s name. I tell her, and then try to go back to my phone. She tells me her son thought Alice was cute, so I said thank you and tried to go back to my phone. Then another developmentally disabled person who was with them came over and said the same things to me. I answered the questions, but each time went back to my phone.
I just didn’t have it in me today to do a lot of interacting. I have been so busy that I’m really nearing the end of my rope. Later on I felt really guilty about not indulging these people with disabilities and getting into conversations with them. But at the time I was just in the mindset of trying to get away from these people.
Luckily just then the son’s name was called, and all three of them left to go to the appointment.
After a while, my name was called and we went back to the room. After asking me some initial questions, the nurse told me she needed to do an EKG! I was not prepared for that! I was wearing a dress—luckily with shorts underneath! But I had no bra and the dress didn’t unsnap in the front or anything. So the lady got a show with me almost naked on her table! She asked me if I wanted a pillowcase to cover my boobs with, but honestly I didn’t mind so long as she didn’t mind.
Brad was behind her and he was miming to me that if I were not topless, this would make a great photo! She stuck about 10 stickers to my chest and arms, then attached the leads. I put Alice on the exam table next to me (they had paper on it, so I figured it was OK), and she was very confused by the whole thing! She just leaned up into my side during the test.
The test took a very long time, they had to keep redoing something or looking at something. Eventually it was done and I could put my clothes back on!
Then we waited for like 30 minutes for the doctor to come in the room! Luckily I started reading “Lies My Teacher Told Me” which is very good so far, so I had something to do.
The doctor came in and told me that my EKG was slightly abnormal. He said that he wanted to do an echocardiogram of my heart just to be sure that it isn’t something important.
After asking me some questions, he said it sounded like I needed a sleep study. At first I asked to have it at home. But then he told us that the at-home tests have a 1/3 false negative rate! That means 1/3 of the time when you have a problem, it doesn’t show up on the at-home tests. So he recommended an in person test for me.
He took me up to the front to schedule my tests, and the woman there was extremely helpful. She got me into the Ft. Mill sleep lab because they have a private room where I could have my service dog with me no problem. Unfortunately this means that I now have three more medical appointments on my calendar (echocardiogram, sleep study, and follow up appointment)! Boy am I tired of going to the doctor!!!!
Overall it was good that we went. I am slightly concerned about my unusual EKG reading. So it’s good that I’m getting that checked out. He was concerned that my feet swell, so maybe there is something going on with my heart? I just hope the sleep study doesn’t turn up anything because I surely don’t want to wear a CPAP machine!
We got a picture of me and Alice, and a picture of Brad in the room. I am wearing a galaxy dress and have little sable and white Alice in a rainbow service dog pouch. Brad is wearing orange pants, a green jacket, an orange fox tie and sleeping fox pin, and an orange, blue, and green cap.
I will tell you this, while a CPAP is not easy to get used to, it really really helps your sleep, the first night my husband slept so well and woke up feeling rested and boy did I sleep better
I have been using a CPAP machine for over 2 years.