Skip to main content

The Power of Sleep Part 2

Please read part 1 here The Power of Sleep

The day I was booked to test the CPAP machine started like any other day. Coffee first and foremost, crazy mad rush to get Sam to school and then to town. I needed to buy some goodies for the wedding. T-minus 14 days. Around 9am I get a phone call from the Neurologist making sure everything is still on for that evenings test. Half an hour later I get a phone call from the medical aid. They haven't approved the test for that evening. Reason being? My sleep apnoea isn't severe enough. OK, so if you suffer more than 5 apnoea's an hour it is considered abnormal. If you suffer more than 10 it starts to seriously affect your life. I suffer 25 apnoea's in an hour. What did they want? No, it needs to be over 30. Even the neurologist didn't have words.

It is at this point that I burst into tears. The shear frustration of being so close to testing a solution and the medical aid is being an ass. The amount of money paid to them on a yearly basis could have paid for everything without the schlep of dealing with them. So we calmly, (mostly my fiancé was calm, and I was a raving lunatic) went to see a consultant to find out what we can do to motivate the need for the test. I "calmly" told him I won't speak to the woman because I will voice my displeasure in a very foul mouthed way. So fiancé did the talking. It was fine. Fine. Until the wench phoned the head office to find out why I was declined. The way she spoke lowered her regard in my eyes as her blatant "we have you by the balls because you need our money" attitude had me wanting to hiss like a snake. So from hence she will be known as wench. I remained quietly seething because I need the damn money. 4pm that evening they emailed, not phoned, EMAILED to let us know they have reviewed and accepted the test. Now perhaps at this point you are curious about who it is, but no there isn't a point in saying who it is because they are all the same. Medical aid, car insurance and house insurance fall into the bracket run by hypocritical snakes. I imagine a building filled with Martin Shkreli's.

I did the test. Very weird machine. When you breathe in it blasts you with air and sort of switches off when you breathe out. Eventually I fell asleep. The next day had everything removed and I was hoping I will feel different, renewed, ohmygosh my brain spent the night oxygenated. Well, I did feel different. Found out there is such a thing called CPAP hangover. So due to dehydration the machine can cause; it gives you the same feeling like you were partying the night before. To counter it, is to ensure you drink well during the day. Now with all the stress and running around I truly cannot recall how much water I drank and probably that alone says not enough.

I now await the results to determine what type of machine will be best for me. I will most likely find this out after the wedding so no more pressure along those lines then. And then I can feel better about getting all my motivations from my doctors to give to the medical aid for my own CPAP machine. I am at least better prepared and hopefully I can talk to them via email. Since that is their preferred method of screwing...I mean talking to people.

My next post will be far happier. A wedding post! The date is the 24th of March. I will talk about planning and all the craziness leading up to it which at this point I really hope is not that crazy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Sucker For Christmas

I am a sucker for Christmas. I remember it being my favourite time of year when growing up. Then I had a few years from my teens till when my daughter was born that weren't so magical anymore. I guess it was part of growing up. After my daughter was born, the spark of Christmas ignited once again and it is the one time of year I like to go all out. We put up the tree before my daughter went off to visit her dad for three weeks. Yes, three! She will be back just after Christmas so we will be celebrating it twice. The first few days I spent wondering what to do with my life. Then I got motivated to climb into my hobbies that get neglected with the roller coaster of motherhood. Any mothers suffer severe guilt if they start to enjoy their alone time? I like to call this motherhood psychosis. We really can't give ourselves a break! The tree has its honored place in the lounge and I can glimpse it every day as I type. I always get warm feelings. Except that it is 30⁰C in

The Power of Sleep

The last 2 years have been exceptionally difficult without a solid reason. I just can't seem to cope with the smallest things and I am beyond tired. It began at work during my instrumentation learnership (and it is possible it began long before this). I suffered indescribable migraines and lunch times I needed to lay my head down. Not the "I feel like a nap" kind of post lunch feeling. This was extreme exhaustion that even if I was walking around I needed to get back to sit down. I couldn't cope anymore. Doctors visits and blood tests later and there was nothing to say there is something wrong. But something was wrong and finally after an explosive migraine episode at work I left and never returned. I suffered migraines and what I can only describe as a post migraine recovery for a week. A doctor said my optic nerve was swollen. I began getting pains in my shoulders, down my arms to my wrists. Pins and needles in my hands and legs. My physical activity crashed and I w