I am getting ready to leave for Colorado. Some last minute packing and errands to do and I'll be ready to go. Life is never boring. Still waiting for the Colorado RN license, but I expect it will be another week.
I am moving on Monday the 9th. I am going to drive part way with the dogs and then drive the rest of the way on the 10th. I feel bad about leaving Dale in this house alone. He works most of the time but when he comes home he will be living in an empty house, except for his bed and a few ramen noodles. He'll have his DVD player and a lamp, and a few toys in the garage but we're hoping this doesn't turn into a long time.
Our friends here who are from Greeley-and moving back to Greeley are trying to sell their house and they are in the same boat as us. She moved up to Greeley and he stayed here and is working and waiting until the house sells. The real estate market is still slow. But our next door neighbor's house sold yesterday- and it's been on the market 10 weeks, so we're hoping ours will sell soon too. All these nice places keep coming up for sale north of Denver and we are excited about finding a new home.
The last week in September I went to the cabin for the week, hoping to catch some fall colors before everything turns gray for the winter. I also took a load of paintings with me, and as much fragile stuff as I could fit in Dale's truck. I took the girls, too.
Driving into southern Colorado as we approached Alamosa we could see the entire Sangre de Cristo range and everything else above 10,000 feet was completely white. The mountains were blazing white and the sun was setting, turning the clouds awesome purples, peaches and pinks. The gold and red aspen on the slopes were glowing, too, and the way the light was at that moment, as I drove past the hay fields and old barns north on 285, it was spectacular. Even the dogs seemed to notice because they were both sitting up, looking out the windshield, like they were fixated on the bright white peaks.
I got this strange feeling as I was driving in that landscape, it was this unfamiliar feeling I haven't had in a long long time. I felt like I could breathe. I felt like some sort of tension had been lifted from my entire body. I felt lightweight and relaxed, like everything was as it should be.
We arrived late at the cabin and I had to feed the girls and get a fire started. The ubiquitous South Park wind was howling and I could see the snow off the side of the road on Red Hill Pass, which is one of the lower passes, under 10,000 feet, so I wondered if the ground would be covered in snow in Como. There was snow scattered through our yard and it hadn't melted off the woodpiles yet but there was no real accumulation in town,enough to make the road muddy. I froze my ass off unloading the truck in that wind soI grabbed the dog food and blankets and I left the heavy stuff for the morning. I ate some rice noodles and got the bed ready and then we slept. We didn't know if we'd see colors in the morning, it would have to be a surprise.
When we woke up, I looked out the north window, and I got my wish- bright gold and red aspens all on the edge of town, and when I walked outside the mountains where solid white above treeline and there was more color everywhere. It was cold but the fire kept us warm and I was able to open the door with only the screen door closed, and we stayed warm enough. The wind was there again but it stopped blowing by about 8:30. I took the girls for a hike for a couple of hours. They wore their new blaze orange capes. The trail was covered with snow! It was about ankle deep and I was wearing hiking boots, but every so often we'd hit a deep patch in the trees and I'd sink in to mid-calf! The aspen leaves were gold and were falling on the snow and made these little holes as they melted in.
At night the sky was so bright with stars that there was more space in the sky occupied by stars than there was darkness. Since living in the desert I haven't seen many stars- too much smog and light.
Remember how I have been complaining of dizziness since the beginning of my last semester of school?
This might be news to you, but I found out I am *NOT* crazy. Not only am I not crazy, but I am not hysterical, menopausal, in need of psychotropic drugs, psychiatric treatment, hormones, or PMS remedies. I am not pathologically anxious, depressed, psychosomatic, or a multitude of other dismissive diagnoses that usually are applied to middle-aged women who complain of fatigue.
I found out I have obstructive sleep apnea. FINALLY I understand why I have been so tired for so long, for years- even though my thyroid has been where it should be for a long time now. I had a sleep study last weekend. I am getting a second sleep study this weekend and will probably be getting a CPAP machine to sleep with. CPAP means continuous positive airway pressure- what it does is keeps the airway open while you sleep by applying air pressure by a mask-like device. It doesn't give you oxygen- it's room air- but it does keep your airway from closing so you continue to get enough oxygen. They are way expensive- not to mention inconvenient and uncomfortable at first- but I don't care because I am so happy to have found out there is a reason for my fatigue and I'm not going crazy, except for the fact that my brain and other organs are getting little oxygen or sleep at night.
In a nutshell, obstructive sleep apnea can be caused by anatomical factors- for some reason the back of your throat gets blocked while you're sleeping and you snore or gasp for air, it can be due to allergies, swelling, the way the structures in the back of your throat are shaped, or by obesity- which is more common. People who have a lot of weight on their neck area can end up having problems. What happens is you end up not getting enough oxygen while you sleep- which over the long term, can affect all your organs- heart, brain, kidneys, muscles, everything. You need oxygen! It can lead to high blood pressure because your heart compensates for not having enough oxygen by working harder to pump the blood out- trying to get oxygen to the tissues. Which is bad for all those other organs too.
Since obstructive sleep apnea is common in obese people, it's easy for doctors to gloss over it in a non-obese person. But it's actually a lot more common in non-obese people than they thought.
I woke up 78 times during the 7 hours of "sleep" and my oxygen level dropped frequently, among other things. The average for people without sleep apnea is about 17 times during that amount of sleep. I actually only slept for 4 1/2 hours during those 7 hours. I know I was uncomfortable with all the electrodes but if I am waking up so many times during the night and not getting enough oxygen, then of course I am not getting the rest I need.
This explains why I always wake up in the morning feeling like I didn't get any sleep, or feeling like I need about 4 more hours even though I think I slept for 8 or 9 hours, and waking up with headaches in the morning. This explains why I have so little energy and feel tired all the time, and no matter what I do in my life I can't seem to shake the fatigue. It explains the dizziness for the past 4 months and occasionally waking up gasping for air- which I've been noticing since this summer, and why for so long even though my thyroid is where it should be with the medication, I still feel like I'm hypothyroid.
Hopefully this will be the beginning of getting my life back and maybe I'll even have energy for ultras again. I am happy. I can't wait to start feeling better.
And once again it wasn't a physician who figured this out. It was a nurse, well, almost a nurse. (It *was* a few weeks before I got my license.) I'd been experiencing this dizziness since the beginning of the summer. While I was doing my preceptorship in the CVICU, one of my patients was having a sleep study done. I read about the patient's history, and then thought about my dad, who has sleep apnea and uses a CPAP. That's when it clicked. I thought, maybe I should have that checked out. After all I went through with my thyroid, then I found out afterwards that my dad has thyroid issues. I went back to my family physician- after seeing the specialist who did nothing for me. The specialist, an ear-nose-throat/neuro doctor I saw at the end of July never even mentioned anything about sleep. He was asking if I was depressed or anxious, and said it could be my thyroid- which was fine at the time. And they are supposed to be the ones who treat people with sleep apnea!!!
Anyway I asked my doctor if she could order a sleep study and I explained why, and she thought it was a good idea, to try to figure out the dizziness. It took a month to get in for a sleep study, so I had it last week- I went to the sleep lab and you go in and they set you up with all these electrodes- on your face, scalp, legs, neck, upper lip, and you have an EKG running and you wear a little harness with a sensor in it and a pulse oximeter on your finger- and you have this cannula thing in your nose measuring your breathing pattern-and you're under a video camera with an intercom next to the bed- in this room that looks and smells kind of like a motel room- knowing you're being watched and listened to-and you're supposed to sleep!
The other thing that happened was that I had an allergic reaction to the tape and electrode paste they used. I did look funny walking around for the first day or so after my sleep study- there were these little round areas on my temples and forehead surrounded by a red rash so you could see the outline of the electrodes. I am allergic to the adhesive on the micropore tape, and the electrode paste on my scalp made me itch for a few days. I had to wash my hair 5 times to get the electrode paste out! It will be worth looking like psych patient for a few days if it means I will finally get some good sleep!
It's fun going out in public like that. Anyone who asked- I told them no big deal- it was from the electrodes- you know, the shock therapy!!
I got those results of the sleep study the other day. They recommended another sleep study to set me up with a CPAP titration- to see if I'd benefit from it- and if so, they can figure out which CPAP settings I'll need to use to get the best results. I am going to do it this Saturday night and get the results and try to get all of the follow up stuff done before I switch insurance next month.
Important lesson again here. This was like figuring out my thyroid, nearly 5 years ago. It was my friend Anne, who used to live here too- she moved back to Michigan- where she came from. We're both survivors of higher education. She's a clinical psychologist, a PhD, not an MD. About 5 years ago we were talking about how I was feeling like I was losing my mind- no one could explain my fatigue. I was describing all the crap that I was experiencing, and the doctor kept pushing antidepressants and hormones, and when I told Anne about it she said, have you had your thyroid checked? No, no one had bothered to check that. So I asked for a thyroid function test and that was the problem!
The lesson is you need to be persistent if you're not feeling well and what the doctors tell you isn't working, keep looking into it. Check out your family history. It might annoy the doctors because you're not bending down to kiss their feet and worshipping them. This happens all too often, especially to women!
Peace, love, & scalp electrodes,
Towanda, RN, B.I.T.C.H. (still RN2B in Colorado)
