Sleep Clinic Nightmare

I'm sure those of you who have first hand knowledge of the experiences you go through during your first visit to a Sleep Clinic will be able to relate to the hellish night I went through less than 24 hours ago.

After consulting with my doctor a little while back, he decided that some of the symptoms I was describing could be related to Sleep Apnea. For those of you who don't know what this is, sleep apnea is a serious disorder that causes your breathing to stop repeatedly while you sleep. And as I'm sure you can understand...to stop breathing is a bad thing.

So I was given an appointment to go spend the night at the clinic and have my sleep patterns monitored. It sounded simple enough to me. I'll just show up and go to bed and wait to hear my results.

Of course it just isn't that simple. I showed up at 8:15pm and was met by a lovely nurse and one of the two other patients for the evening. Lets call him Andre. He was French and is in the Canadian Armed Forces...go figure. His accent was thick but with a little effort he could be understood. The conversation was pleasant but I quickly realized this wasn't going to be a simple night of bed rest.

As I filled out a group of forms with a seemingly endless amount of questions, I watched as Nurse Gail (I think that was her name) prepared Andre for his nocturnal slumber. She was measuring his head and drawing red marks on his scalp in different places and then began attaching sensors galore. I don't know how many there were but I'd guess there were at least four on the head, one on each cheek and two on the chin. There was also a sensor attached to the neck and three on each leg and two belts were wrapped around his Chest and Stomach. Just to add to this madness, two more were attached to the back shoulder blades and then one inserted into each nostril.

I watched this and realized I'm next. How the hell was I supposed to sleep with all of this crap and their wires glued to me? Nurse Gail went through the same process with me and then placed the box containing the other end of all of the sensors around my neck so I could walk to my assigned room. Once in bed, nurse Gail hooked me up to the machines in the room at the top of my bed. There was also a camera at the end of the bed so I could be monitored from another room. I knew I had to behave myself now.

Nurse Gail then left the room and spoke to me through an intercom and had me do several things to test the connections. I was doing ankle flexes to eye movements and coughing. The best one was when she had me try to move my stomach like a belly dancer. Pardon my grammar but I ain't no belly dancer. I must have done alright as I was given the green light to sleep.

By this time it's about 10:30pm and as I'm used to staying awake late, I wasn't even close to being tired. I was allowed to read for a short period of time but by the time 11:30 rolled around it was lights out.

Now the fun begins. With no clock in the room I had no sense of time. I laid there for what seemed like hours before I finally nodded off but it was only for a brief time. I was forced to sleep on my back. I never sleep on my back. I sleep on my stomach so that just added to the torture. I could barely move with all of the wires hanging from me. The probes in my nose kept moving around and stabbing me. That was painful and the bed was too damn hard. A few hours in my back was aching. It was one of the longest nights I can remember.

I tried laying on my side but that didn't work well either. Nurse Gail had also attached a monitor to my right index finger to keep an eye on my heart rate so that was yet another obstacle.

I could hear every little sound and of course the harder I tried to talk myself into sleeping, the less chance I had of actually dozing off. Several times I was tempted to just call her on the intercom and say enough was enough but I stuck it out. I did manage to fall asleep a few times through the night but I kept on waking up.

At 5:30am Nurse Gail opened my door and said it's time to get up. She removed all of my sensors and I couldn't have been happier. I asked her if I'd slept and she said I had slept some but didn't say how much. All I know is it was probably the worst sleep I'd ever had. I used the washroom and gathered up my belongings and booked an appointment for a follow up chat with the Doctor. I have no desire to ever do that again.

I made it home and had a shower to remove all of the sticky gel and red markings from my hair. By the time 8:00am rolled around I was finally ready to go to sleep and I wasn't in my own bed very long before I was out like a light.

It was an interesting experience but I've come to the conclusion that if I ever have to do it again, I'd better try to stay up for 24 hours straight prior to going so I can be sure to fall asleep sooner and easier. Going to bed isn't supposed to be a job but after this experience I felt like I'd worked a 12-hour shift.