Last night was yet another in a seemingly endless parade of insults related to my transformation (I’m starting to call this “Project Butterfly” due to the dramatic improvement I have been tacitly promised as I viewed the “After” pictures displayed in my surgeon’s office, but in the meantime, I am one UGLY caterpillar) – we are talking about the sleep study.
It is estimated that at least one-third of American’s suffer from a sleeping disorder, so determining mine should be a slam-dunk. After all, Dr. Posnick (the surgeon) says that people with my skeletal deformity usually also suffer from sleep apnea. Moreover, the cure for sleep apnea is the very surgery for which we are preparing a case to the insurance company. I am sitting on the fifth floor of Georgetown University Hospital waiting for my turn with the sleep technicians to learn whether I have indeed hit the Sleep Apnea Jackpot. Keep in mind that this diagnosis is indeed a desired outcome of this study. Sleep apnea is considered life-threatening, so no self-respecting insurance company (an oxymoron? I’ll explore that topic later) can refuse to cover treatment. Keep in mind that the term “covering treatment” doesn’t mean that they will pay the surgeon’s estimated $25,000 fee; the best I can hope for is full coverage of the $100,000 hospital bill.
My name is called; I emerge from my reverie and am placed in the ample, thumb-ringed hands of Sharon, the sleep technician. It is her job to wire my body for electrodes and devote her night to watching me sleep, capturing my every somnolent move and creating a computer printout that she estimates will be 800 pages long. YIKES! I am led to a room that has all the warmth and ambience of a parking garage. The double bed in the center of the room is decorated with a quilted spread boasting shades of mauve and dusty blue that haven’t been seen since big hair and shoulder pads the size of spare tires were popular. And the bed doesn’t squeak, as you might imagine – it “crunches.” I figure the mattress is stuffed with potato chips.
Sharon moves quickly, attaching electrodes to my ankles, my back, my chest, my face, my scalp. The monitors on my scalp are secured with a wax-like substance that I am certain I will not enjoy removing the next day. She tapes a device to my forefinger that will measure my blood oxygen level by using a red light that passes through my finger. Heart rate monitors are attached around my chest and abdomen. As a final touch, she inserts a tube in my nostrils to measure my exhalations. Just as I am beginning to feel like the Bionic Woman, Sharon brings out the hair nets. These have a caricature effect, and I now resemble a charwoman from a Dickensian novel. All the while, my Eye-talian gentleman caller (henceforth referred to as “IGC”) is snapping photos with a look of fiendish delight. I hear him murmur how “wonderful” these photos are, how he can’t wait to share these with friends and family, and I promise myself I will sew shut the fly on his trousers sometime.
All wired and aglow, it is time for bed. Kiss the IGC goodnight and settle in between the polyester covers. A few “crunchy” moves this way and that, and I am in the best position I can muster. Let the sleep study begin!
Sharon has gone to the Sleep Study Command Center so she can observe me from a safe distance (something the IGC might want to emulate from time to time as circumstances warrant). Her disembodied voice booms down upon me from above. She needs to calibrate her cameras, so she asks me to gaze upon various objects in the room so she can adjust her equipment. I comply. What are my choices? I will even need her assistance to take me and all these wires, monitors and probes to the bathroom tonight, a thought that fills me with dread, so acquiescence seems like my best strategy.
Finally, I fall asleep – remember the purpose of this adventure? – in a semi-sitting position, since it’s hard to find a comfortable place to lie down. I awaken my usual five to six times overnight (luckily never requiring an assisted-visit to the bathroom), “crunch” for about five minutes this way and that, watch some television and then drift back to sleep, awakening for good at 6:00. Sharon and I unhook myself, I get dressed, I complete another survey, I again ponder wax removal, and I go looking for IGC who has returned to fetch me with the promise of breakfast. The survey asks how I feel this morning after a nightful of crunching and watching Celebrity Poker. I laugh out loud. Before I leave, Sharon confides in me that whatever diagnosis I was looking for was confirmed last night. Oh boy, I say to myself. Surgery, here we come!