I WAS ADMITTED TO A MATERNITY WARD...TWICE!

       Now before you get too carried away, I did not have a baby!

        I was not admitted because my wife had a baby. 

       There was no monstrous mistake.

       It was not some grand practical joke.

       But I swear I was genuinely admitted to a maternity ward.

       It has to do with health authorities wanting to make a health buck go as far as possible. Their creative ideas put me in the maternity ward.

       A few years ago my family doc decided that I should have sleep tests. A  sleep test to determine if I had sleep apnea.

       The good old health system had a plan. Since sleep tests are done at night and apparently babies come in the daytime , why not use the maternity ward for sleep tests. You stay over night and leave in the morning.

      So there I was checking into the maternity ward at 8:00 PM. 
  
       I was expecting to find all kinds of new mothers inhabiting the ward. I wasn't sure I was going to like this.

      The maternity ward was like a ghost town. They had no patients except on the second night there was one couple there in the evening.

      So the sleep test people were wired up to the test apparatus and tucked into bed by 10:00 PM. Hoping people would sleep with wires attached from top to bottom  was completely irrational. but I did stay in bed for the eight hour test. 

      I can't say that I had a good sleep but it was very quiet.

I Spent Two Nights in the Maternity Ward.

    Now some of you are saying, "Big deal.! I spent several nights in the maternity ward and did the real thing! "Others may say, "Ya,visiting?" Others are saying,"Ya , visiting your wife!" Ya, I know . You were born there.

    None of these are true. I was admitted overnight twice to a maternity ward.

    Two beds in a regional hospital are dedicated to sleep testing. Those two beds just happen to be carved out of a maternity ward.

    I was sent twice to sleep overnight for sleep testing. Sleep apnea is when you stop breathing in your sleep. You'll always start breathing again. The problem is that your blood oxygen level gets low. You wake up the next day feeling very fatigued.

    I have allergies so sometimes I get nasal drip which irritates my throat. What really sent me to sleep testing is one time when my daughter stayed in the same hotel room as us. The next day she complained about all the noise Mom and Dad made all night. She said, "One of you snores and one of you makes choking noises." I knew who snored , so that left me with the choking noises. That's what prompted me to get some testing done. The test showed that my oxygen level stays above the minimum level.

     You check into the hospital about 8:00 PM. About 10:00 PM they put you to bed but not until an awful lot of wiring is done to you. This equipment will keep track of your sleep patterns and your blood oxygen levels all night. Sleep is almost impossible with that much wire on you. You can't roll over without worrying that you pull some wires off. Going to the bathroom is a major event. However, morning comes and they take all the wires off and you're good to go. You make your way to a restaurant for breakfast. The cheapos don't even give you breakfast.

    Now getting back to maternity. The first night I was there there were no maternity patients, just one other guy for sleep testing. The second time there was a young couple on the ward and the baby had been born in the afternoon so Mom was staying over night. So the heavy work in the maternity ward is done in the day and everybody is sent home.

    So there, I did spend the night admitted to a maternity ward!

Sleep Clinic Challenge

     When I started blogging, this as the fourth post I made. I found out that nobody read this post because I didn't have any readers so I decided to post it again.


    Last Friday night I slept at the sleep clinic . Now sleep clinic is an absolute misnomer as you don't get much shut eye . However , the sleep clinic is the end of my story .

      How did I get to the sleep clinic ? Was it when my daughter slept in the same hotel room and complained the next morning that she had a very poor sleep as one of us snored (my wife of course ) and the other choked . Was it when my children were infants ? Was it stress from my work ?

    Well, let's start from the beginning . I was born in 1939 to a young farm couple who had a very meagre residence ...three rooms ...no insulation or central heating . Eleven and one half months later I had a baby brother and by the time I was two years old I also had a little sister . My poor mother ! But that's another story . This one's on sleep . I can remember the three of us sleeping in one bed which wasn't crowded as we were little . As children we slept soundly even though three little bodies rolled and thrashed around and occasionally fell out of bed .
Later a new house was constructed and we had our own rooms ! Sleep was great . I was young . The house had central heating and was insulated .
I left after high school to attend college and lived in various boarding houses with shared accommodation . I did wake up from time to time with noise from other roomers coming and going . I changed localities very often in my early twenties as I taught and went to university . I spent three years in a very noisy single staff accommodation were there was much coming and going through the night . I remember being awake as I would hear people coming and going in the hallways . Sometimes there were all night parties .

    I lived in a remote northern settlement were my wife was the nurse . She was on call twenty four- seven . Many nights she was required to attend to a sick person . We weren't in the habit of locking the house door until people walked into the house and into the bedroom to get the nurse .

     Children arrived and took my attention . I felt a great responsibility for the welfare of my children while they were infants .Hungry , cold or ill children had to be looked after . Teenage children were another thing . From a young age my son liked movies . He would try to sneak downstairs to watch a movie and would get caught . He said ,"Dad, I never got downstairs to watch a movie . You always caught me ."

      My children left home , but my interrupted sleep became worse . For many years I have set my thermostat so that the furnace does not come on after bedtime as I found a running furnace always awakened me . Through all of my poor sleep patterns I never felt fatigued and was always a morning person . I never needed an alarm clock .
In January of 2006 I began to feel fatigue and found it difficult to rise in the morning . When my daughter made the choking observation , I could immediately think of sleep apnea as I would be waking up with a jump . In 2007 My family physician referred me to a sleep specialist . The sleep specialist ordered a sleep clinic experience .

     So there I was last Friday evening . Now the sleep clinic really wants to see how badly you sleep so they wire you up from head to toe . They will miss nothing . Sensors are attached to your shins and arms . A belt is put around your chest and another around your stomach . A box about twice the size of a mouse is attached to each belt . All these gizmos are firmly attached with liberal amounts of plastic tape . They tell you you can sleep in any position ...just try it!  Then they say ,"Have a good night!"

     As you can well imagine I did not have a very successful sleep . It's not easy sleeping in a strange place with all kinds of material attached to you .
I have not received any results from this ordeal, but I would rather go through the investigation as it is well known , that sleep apnea can lead to many health complications . What happens with sleep apnea is you stop breathing and oxygen levels decrease and your blood pressure rises . The combination can lead to other health problems so I will put up with the discomfort as it may prevent other options which are not positive .

     So , Friday night in a sleep clinic !!! Kind of a bad joke !!!!

Sleep Clinic ???

      Last Friday night I slept at the sleep clinic . Now sleep clinic is an absolute misnomer as you don't get much shut eye . However , the sleep clinic is the end of my story .

      How did I get to the sleep clinic ? Was it when my daughter slept in the same hotel room and complained the next morning that she had a very poor sleep as one of us snored (my wife of course ) and the other choked . Was it when my children were infants ? Was it stress from my work ?

    Well, let's start from the beginning . I was born in 1939 to a young farm couple who had a very meagre residence ...three rooms ...no insulation or central heating . Eleven and one half months later I had a baby brother and by the time I was two years old I also had a little sister . My poor mother ! But that's another story . This one's on sleep . I can remember the three of us sleeping in one bed which wasn't crowded as we were little . As children we slept soundly even though three little bodies rolled and thrashed around and occasionally fell out of bed .
Later a new house was constructed and we had our own rooms ! Sleep was great . I was young . The house had central heating and was insulated .
I left after high school to attend college and lived in various boarding houses with shared accommodation . I did wake up from time to time with noise from other roomers coming and going . I changed localities very often in my early twenties as I taught and went to university . I spent three years in a very noisy single staff accommodation were there was much coming and going through the night . I remember being awake as I would hear people coming and going in the hallways . Sometimes there were all night parties .

    I lived in a remote northern settlement were my wife was the nurse . She was on call twenty four seven . Many nights she was required to attend to a sick person . We weren't in the habit of locking the house door until people walked into the house and into he bedroom to get the nurse .

     Children arrived and took my attention . I felt a great responsibility for the welfare of my children while they were infants .Hungry , cold or ill children had to be looked after . Teenage children were another thing . From a young age my son liked movies . He would try to sneak downstairs to watch a movie and would get caught . He said ,"Dad, I never got downstairs to watch a movie . You always caught me ."

      My children left home , but my interrupted sleep became worse . For many years I have set my thermostat so that the furnace does not come on after bedtime as I found a running furnace always awakened me . Through all of my poor sleep patterns I never felt fatigued and was always a morning person . I never needed an alarm clock .
In January of 2006 I began to feel fatigue and found it difficult to rise in the morning . When my daughter made the choking observation , I could immediately of sleep apnea as I would be waking up with a jump . In 2007 My family physician referred me to a sleep specialist . The sleep specialist ordered a sleep clinic experience .

     So there I was last Friday evening . Now the sleep clinic really wants to see how badly you sleep so they wire you up from head to toe . They will miss nothing . Sensors are attached to your shins and arms . A belt is put around your chest and another around your stomach . A box about twice the size of a mouse is attached to each belt . All these gizmos are firmly attached with liberal amounts of plastic tape . They tell you you can sleep in any position ...just try it . Then they say ,"Have a good night ."

     As you can well imagine I did not have a very successful sleep . It's not easy sleeping in a strange place with all kinds of material attached to you .
I have not received any results from this ordeal, but I would rather go through the investigation as it is well known , that sleep apnea can lead to many health complications . What happens with sleep apnea is you stop breathing and oxygen levels decrease and your blood pressure rises . The combination can lead to other health problems so I will put up with the discomfort as it may prevent other options which are not positive .

     So , Friday night in a sleep clinic !!! Kind of a bad joke !!!!