Yay, as of 7:30 last night, we have been sprung from the hospital. There is just nothing like 4 days in the hospital to make you appreciate the joys of being home. On top of everything else, by the end, we were so seriously sleep-deprived that it was like some bizarre form of torture... more about that later.
And the end result of all of it... kind of nothing, weirdly enough. Why is Michael severely anemic? No idea. Nothing showed up on any test (no matter how invasive!). Why has he has this whole collection of weird symptoms? No idea. What are we doing next? Well, not much idea about that, either.
He goes for a sleep study on Wednesday night, poor baby... I really wanted to reschedule this, but the doctor convinced us (probably correctly) that it's best to do a sleep study when you're really tired anyway. The last night of hell in the hospital, they hooked him to a CPAP machine (keeps your airways open if you have sleep apnea) but also to a monitor with an alarm that goes off if your oxygen levels drop. Well, every time he really fell asleep, his oxygen levels dropped... and so the alarm kept going off about every 15 minutes, all night. Finally at 5 a.m., we insisted that they take it away and got a whole two hours of sleep before some relentlessly perky nurse woke us up a 7 for absolutely no reason that I could tell (not checking vital signs or anything else, just randomly came in to wake us up?). I have rarely so completely just wanted to swat someone. Anyway, so possibly the sleep study will correctly diagnose his degree of sleep apnea and resolve this, and that might help the heart rate issues.
And we're going to try to get life back together. And get him well. More about that later.
Hey.... if you're following along with this, and you want to do a good deed today, leave me a comment. Just a "I hear you." This has been a very long and grueling thing, this whole autumn and the steady progression of these physical things getting worse for Michael, and I feel pretty alone with all this. So... it would make me feel a little better to know that you were out there.
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4 comments:
Best of luck! Treat each other to some nice small luxuries now that you're home again, to relax and take the stress off. If the doctors can't find the problem, i guess until they do the only thing to do is focus on getting healthy in general, right?
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea a couple of months ago. The CPAP really helps. I'm not only more awake but also less cranky and generally a bit happier.
Also, supposedly sleep apnea can cause weight gain as lack of REM sleep affects various hormones that regulate appetite and energy levels.
Hi Nina,
Been following your and Michael's progress closely, been thinking about you and wishing you well. Not commented recently because I didn't want to leave a senseless comment when you are clearly having a difficult time at the moment.
Roy
I'm here, too, Nina. I'm with Roy...I didn't want to sound trite. Still praying for you both.
Pat
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