i think he took some leave to evaluate his taste in wheels
Haha, well played, well played ;-).
As for the rest of you. I've been dealing with some medical and resulting financial issues. If you're interested in hearing about it, i'll post it at the bottom.
There isnt really anything different about the car since you guys' last saw it except for some new wiperblades (zomg super l33tsauce!) and about 15k more miles.
I likely won't be able to make a GTG for a month or two longer, i've been working as much OT as possible to get caught up on bills, and unfortunately the only OT thats been available is saturday afternoon and evenings. I promise though as soon as i can i'll come hang out.
As for what's been wrong with me:
I started having some issues where i was always stupid tired and would nod off at random times uncontrollably
. At first i thought i had narcolepsy (lemme tell you, nodding off on I-25 at 80mph and almost side swiping an f-250 is a fucking wake up call), but after speaking with my doctor, she was about 90% certain i had sleep apnea. Thus began the tests. First i did a test where you strap a thing to your finger which monitors heart rate and oxygen absorbtion levels. That one showed that i basically stopped breathing 5 times in about a 7.5 hour period, my oxygen levels got down to the low 30%'s and there was a couple times where my heart stopped for 3-4 seconds. How awesome is that... After that I ended up doing 2 seperate sleep studies at memorial. During the first study, i never even made it past stage N1. For a point of reference, there is N1, N2, N3 and then full REM sleep. N1 is basically when you're actually semi awake, but extremely drousy, etc. So, they were able to determine from the first sleep study that i definitely had sleep apnea, i actually have whats called "Complex" sleep apnea. Basically about 90%+ of people have obstructive sleep apnea, which is where your actual physical airway passage is blocked by a collapse of your soft pallete. The second type is Central sleep apnea, which is where your brain randomly decides to cease your breathing. Anyways, normally what they do in a 8hr sleep test is spend the first 4 hrs gathering data of how you sleep normally. Then the last 4 hours they slap a mask on you and figure out what levels you need on your CPAP machine in order to keep your airway open, etc. The overall goal is to make sure you're getting 90% or better oxygen absorption or something like that.
The second study i actually had to take an ambien just so i could get to full REM sleep so they could figure out everything they needed level wise so my apnea could be treated. The funny thing is, everyone who had taken an ambien told me to make sure i was already in or near bed before i took it, b/c it would knock me out fast. It ended up taking 4.5 hours to actually affect me, even the sleep study technician was basically going /wtf
.
Either way, i discovered that i've actually had sleep apnea for several years now, and i always just mistook the symptoms for something else. Major symptoms are tiredness/fatigue (always just associated that to me being overweight) and waking up with severe headaches (something i've been battling since HS and always thought was allergy related or just part of me). The headaches are actually due to a lack of oxygen. The other major fucked up thing is that when your body never makes it into full REM sleep, your body basically goes into hibernation mode and your metabolism hits the floor. As a result of this, you tend to gain weight, which makes the apnea worse, and etc and so forth.
So, the upside the everything here is that now since i can treat it, i should, in theory, be able to start losing weight, assuming i get my diet and excercise situation under control. Sorry for the long winded post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_stages#NREM_sleep
