A Study on Sleep

Don't tell him I said this, but Jaaromy snores...a lot.  It can be pretty loud sometimes too.  He doesn't sleep well and will sometimes struggle to breathe.  As a result he's tired all the time and sometimes grumpy.  He decided that he was done being tired all the time and so he set up an appointment for a sleep study.  It couldn't come fast enough, he was so anxious to be "fixed".

The appointment finally came.  He was to go to the sleep center at 8:00 and...well, sleep for them.  They'd measure all kinds of things and then kick him out the door at 6:00 am or so.

Luckily, he sent pictures!

They tried on different masks to see which one worked best.

 Apparently, there are tons of different masks to choose from.

Then he got hooked up with all kinds of wires and stuff.

You'd think it would be hard to sleep on command like that, but he said he did okay.  One of the preparation requirements was that he had to wake up by 8:00 am the morning of the study.  So that helped.  But also the years of not sleeping well and constantly being tired helped too.

Funny enough, he was actually worried that he wouldn't sleep badly enough for them.  He had all kinds of weird and vivid dreams while they watched and measured.  In the end, he needn't have worried about his performance, it was clear that he had severe sleep apnea.  Now we just had to wait for it all to be processed so he could get his mask.  He knew that it would take some getting used to.  They suggest you give it at least three weeks for your body to acclimate to it.  He was hoping that since he was so willing it wouldn't take as long.  Turns out that it's still weird, even if you want it to be there.

As an aside: Jaaromy and I have only been apart over night a handful of times, so it was still a little sad for him to be gone.  So, I thought about what I wanted to do while he was gone.  I decided to take pictures.  It's not that I can't take pictures while he's home, it just gave me something to look forward to.  It's often a solitary activity anyway so it seemed like a good excuse.

Here's what I came up with:

 I love playing with shutter speed.  The clouds were moving kind of fast, but the stars held still for me.

 A rose in my backyard by moonlight.  This was actually really hard to do.  Because it was so dark my camera couldn't auto focus on it so I had to do it manually and it's super tricky to know if it's focused with the display screen.  This picture was focused the best but the shadow of the railing is in the way.

 This one is better lit but not as focused.  Tricky shot.

One more star field, just because.

So that's how I spent my evening alone while Jaaromy was sleeping for doctors.

His first night with the mask was interesting.  He started with the mask that covers his nose and mouth, like in the second picture above.  In the morning I was really anxious to see how he slept.  He said he kept waking up but strangely felt more rested.  After the second night he said it was starting to hurt the bridge of his nose so he asked for a different kind of mask.  I don't have a picture of it but it basically goes on the nose, just under the nostrils.  He has to wear a chin strap to keep his mouth closed, otherwise it won't work.  It's weird because the machine is keeping constant air pressure in his throat and mouth so if he tries to talk while it's on all the air comes rushing out his mouth.

He's gradually getting used to it though.  It's been a week and it's starting to feel normal to wear, although he still feels tired.  I'm hopeful that he will gradually feel more rested as time goes on.

Hey, and no snoring!  That's awesome.