![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's been a while...
Oct. 18th, 2013 01:04 pmNot sure why, but I had the urge to stop by here today.
*waves*
It's been a while since I've updated. Not sure quite how long, but I'd wager I've not done too much in the last two years. So, here we go...
I've been having a lot of medical issues over the last two years. The kind of issues that when you go in to the doctor's office, the nurse chats things up during a blood draw saying 'yeah, the clerical staff and I were talking about your situation -- this is like the worst thing ever!'. -_- It's even worse when you can't figure out why.
After lots and lots of different sorts of tests - so much proking, prodding, etc - the following is known:
- I'm anemic (I'm taking huge iron supplement doses to try to help this; additionally, there are other vitamins I've not been absorbing - those I'm taking supplements for, too).
- I have some bad ass sleep apnea (Short course in sleep apnea... it's basically when you stop breathing when you sleep. 15-30 times an hour is moderate; 30+ is severe. My average is 88. 92 when I'm on my back. This means about three times a minute when I sleep, I stop breathing, have to wake up, and then go back to sleep again. It means a lot of things are messed up, especially REM sleep. Which leads to...)
- When tested, it showed 0.0% REM sleep (My doctor is theorizing that I've rarely, if ever, managed to make it to REM sleep. I seem to have compensated with 'dreaming light' by dreaming in the second stage of sleep... a very vivid, lucid, daydreamish thing)
That means that Wednesday night, when I got my cpap all set up, I got to experience 'real' sleep (REM sleep) for the first time.
It's kind of weird. First, I never knew that people aren't supposed to be 'aware' that they're 'sleeping' (eg., I used to sleep, and then when I woke, I'd typically know how much time had passed). Second, I didn't realize that REM dreams are 'different'. I don't have the same control; it's more like watching a movie than being in an improv scene.
Also, I can wake up to alarm clocks now, and I was kind of freaked out Thursday morning when I woke up. I've never really experienced what true 'awake' is. Everything I ever experienced before can be thought of as more of an 'underwater' state. Dreams and reality were much closer in how they felt; now, they're more distanced, if that makes any sense.
On the doggie front, Smudge is still around, and still a sweetie. Mobility issues, yes, with the leg that had the surgery, but he's peppy and tail wagging and all that. We keep him in our bedroom now; it's easier in case he rolls off his bed or something and has trouble getting back on --- though, he sleeps a lot more soundly at night being in the room with us.
This is NaNoWriMo #9 for me. I think I have a plot. We'll see...
*waves*
It's been a while since I've updated. Not sure quite how long, but I'd wager I've not done too much in the last two years. So, here we go...
I've been having a lot of medical issues over the last two years. The kind of issues that when you go in to the doctor's office, the nurse chats things up during a blood draw saying 'yeah, the clerical staff and I were talking about your situation -- this is like the worst thing ever!'. -_- It's even worse when you can't figure out why.
After lots and lots of different sorts of tests - so much proking, prodding, etc - the following is known:
- I'm anemic (I'm taking huge iron supplement doses to try to help this; additionally, there are other vitamins I've not been absorbing - those I'm taking supplements for, too).
- I have some bad ass sleep apnea (Short course in sleep apnea... it's basically when you stop breathing when you sleep. 15-30 times an hour is moderate; 30+ is severe. My average is 88. 92 when I'm on my back. This means about three times a minute when I sleep, I stop breathing, have to wake up, and then go back to sleep again. It means a lot of things are messed up, especially REM sleep. Which leads to...)
- When tested, it showed 0.0% REM sleep (My doctor is theorizing that I've rarely, if ever, managed to make it to REM sleep. I seem to have compensated with 'dreaming light' by dreaming in the second stage of sleep... a very vivid, lucid, daydreamish thing)
That means that Wednesday night, when I got my cpap all set up, I got to experience 'real' sleep (REM sleep) for the first time.
It's kind of weird. First, I never knew that people aren't supposed to be 'aware' that they're 'sleeping' (eg., I used to sleep, and then when I woke, I'd typically know how much time had passed). Second, I didn't realize that REM dreams are 'different'. I don't have the same control; it's more like watching a movie than being in an improv scene.
Also, I can wake up to alarm clocks now, and I was kind of freaked out Thursday morning when I woke up. I've never really experienced what true 'awake' is. Everything I ever experienced before can be thought of as more of an 'underwater' state. Dreams and reality were much closer in how they felt; now, they're more distanced, if that makes any sense.
On the doggie front, Smudge is still around, and still a sweetie. Mobility issues, yes, with the leg that had the surgery, but he's peppy and tail wagging and all that. We keep him in our bedroom now; it's easier in case he rolls off his bed or something and has trouble getting back on --- though, he sleeps a lot more soundly at night being in the room with us.
This is NaNoWriMo #9 for me. I think I have a plot. We'll see...
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}