Rotten CPAP machine. I thought I'd had a good night's sleep last night but I feel blinkin' terrible today - headache, all over aches, knackered, just like I'd never made any attempt to get the CFS under control.
I have vowed to give this a month's trial, and I will, and I will do the sleep study to see if it's working. But I've got to start feeling better than this, I can't sumon the energy to do anything except play on the computer and I have mounds of schoolwork waiting to be done, to say nothing of the clean washing that is taking over the house! (And the dirty washing, too, for that matter).
GRUMP
Friday, September 22, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Sleep Study Results
Calling it a sleep study is like calling sleepovers sleepovers. A friend of ours calls sleepovers 'wakeovers'. Well, I think they should be called wake studies! It was NOT COMFORTABLE. However I slept enough for useful results, and they were quite illuminating.
Yes, I have severe sleep apnoea, though not the normal kind (why would I be normal?) My oxygen saturation doesn't drop during the aponea episodes, which is weird. But I do have them repeatedly and I do wake up about once every minute or two ALL NIGHT. And I have Periodic Leg Movement Syndrome, which is like restless legs but only when I;m asleep (Jejeune, if you are reading this, you were right when you mentioned that to me!) SO... I am on a four week trial of a CPAP machine and taking Clonazepam for the leg thing. The sleep doctor said, looking at my readouts, that the technical term for the way you feel after sleeping like that is 'STUFFED'. She's not surprised I have been exhausted and aching all over for five years!
I've only had the machine for two nights so I am not sure yet about whether it is working,. Yesterday I felt much the same as usual and had had some problems getting to sleep with it attached (though I did perservere). Today I feel ike I do on my good days - which is a good sign, as I don't have many good days, and it's nearly 2pm and I haven't wanted to go to sleep yet). The fibro is about the same as it would be on a goodish day. I can;t expect a sudden reversal of the ill-effects of five years damage, so I am being cautiously optimistic at this stage.
It's school holidays and Baby Bear is involved in a drama production all week. She has rehearsed twice a week all of last term and this week was dress rehearsals and then performacnes. We went last night and it was fun. She didn't have the big part that she deserved (being one of the few people who can actually both carry a tune and project her voice!) but she was excellent in her smallish character role and got a lot of people talking.
Wombat is having an enforced quiet week - his two best friends are in the production so he can't play with them, and he is tired from school, so we are slobbing around together watching The Simpsons and things like that.
I have mounds of school work to do. I started tackling some last night and might do some more this afternoon.
I joined the Saturday Sky webring last week but only on Saturday afternoon so didn't get round to posting a picture. There will be one most Saturdays from now on!
Yes, I have severe sleep apnoea, though not the normal kind (why would I be normal?) My oxygen saturation doesn't drop during the aponea episodes, which is weird. But I do have them repeatedly and I do wake up about once every minute or two ALL NIGHT. And I have Periodic Leg Movement Syndrome, which is like restless legs but only when I;m asleep (Jejeune, if you are reading this, you were right when you mentioned that to me!) SO... I am on a four week trial of a CPAP machine and taking Clonazepam for the leg thing. The sleep doctor said, looking at my readouts, that the technical term for the way you feel after sleeping like that is 'STUFFED'. She's not surprised I have been exhausted and aching all over for five years!
I've only had the machine for two nights so I am not sure yet about whether it is working,. Yesterday I felt much the same as usual and had had some problems getting to sleep with it attached (though I did perservere). Today I feel ike I do on my good days - which is a good sign, as I don't have many good days, and it's nearly 2pm and I haven't wanted to go to sleep yet). The fibro is about the same as it would be on a goodish day. I can;t expect a sudden reversal of the ill-effects of five years damage, so I am being cautiously optimistic at this stage.
It's school holidays and Baby Bear is involved in a drama production all week. She has rehearsed twice a week all of last term and this week was dress rehearsals and then performacnes. We went last night and it was fun. She didn't have the big part that she deserved (being one of the few people who can actually both carry a tune and project her voice!) but she was excellent in her smallish character role and got a lot of people talking.
Wombat is having an enforced quiet week - his two best friends are in the production so he can't play with them, and he is tired from school, so we are slobbing around together watching The Simpsons and things like that.
I have mounds of school work to do. I started tackling some last night and might do some more this afternoon.
I joined the Saturday Sky webring last week but only on Saturday afternoon so didn't get round to posting a picture. There will be one most Saturdays from now on!
Monday, September 11, 2006
Bondage
Well, it got your attention more than a title like 'Sleep Study Tonight', didn't it!
I am undergoing a sleep study tonight, at home, which means I have to be inserted into a remarkably attractive contraption of wire and leads and electrodes and box things, and then have a good night's sleep. If I was enthusiastic about bondage, no doubt it would fulfil certain fantasies. However I feel claustrophobia coming on already.
This is because it was compulsory to see a respiratory physician before my operation could be finally approved, and she looked at my medical history and insisted on a sleep study. It is possible that I have sleep apneoa or hypoventilation, and if so they need to know before shoving me under an anasthetic. Fair enough. More excitingly, it is just possible that if one of these is diagnosed, it might be an underlying cause of the CFS - something that no-one else I have seen for it in five years has actually mentioned. (To his credit George did mention it last year but I never followed through on it).
At least I don't have to go into hospital overnight and try to have a normal night's sleep there! I will be in my own bed, and more comfortable at least.
And if I run amok through the house in the wee hours making like Frankenstein's monster, well, that'll give 'em something to talk about at the sleep centre!
I am undergoing a sleep study tonight, at home, which means I have to be inserted into a remarkably attractive contraption of wire and leads and electrodes and box things, and then have a good night's sleep. If I was enthusiastic about bondage, no doubt it would fulfil certain fantasies. However I feel claustrophobia coming on already.
This is because it was compulsory to see a respiratory physician before my operation could be finally approved, and she looked at my medical history and insisted on a sleep study. It is possible that I have sleep apneoa or hypoventilation, and if so they need to know before shoving me under an anasthetic. Fair enough. More excitingly, it is just possible that if one of these is diagnosed, it might be an underlying cause of the CFS - something that no-one else I have seen for it in five years has actually mentioned. (To his credit George did mention it last year but I never followed through on it).
At least I don't have to go into hospital overnight and try to have a normal night's sleep there! I will be in my own bed, and more comfortable at least.
And if I run amok through the house in the wee hours making like Frankenstein's monster, well, that'll give 'em something to talk about at the sleep centre!
Thursday, September 07, 2006
P is for Pear 4
This pear was done in blackstitch (only in green, actually) on evenweave white linen. 
P is for Pear 3
The pear is made from Tyvek. I painted a sheet of it with bronze acrylic paint, then ironed the whole sheet and cut out a pear shape from it. This was stuck down and hand stitched around onto the background. The background was prepared from crumbpled up brown paper, roughly smoothed out again, and Vliesofix that i had painted with acrylics and, when it was dry, ironed onto the brown paper. I then machined lines onto it to give (I hope!) an impression of a table and a wall behind.
P is for Pear 2
The pear is made of air drying clay, painted with acrylics and then with gold wax rubbed on it. It is on a lightly quilted background using echo quilting done by hand. The pear is glued onto the fabric ground and then surrounded with peyote stitched seed beads.
P is for Pear 1
This is going to be on the front cover of my folder for TAFE this semester. It is bead embroidery on felt, using mostly seed beads with a few accent beads thrown in.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
A Long Time Between Posts
What a week!
We lost two great Australians this week ... one in-your-face loudmouth who was actually a superb naturalist and conservationist, and one wonderful author who I have loved since childhood.
The whole world knows about the death of Steve Irwin. Presumably the stingray was a contract killer called The Jackal who has now snuck off to South America with his ill-gotten gains, paid off by Australia's much-abused reptiles. Seriously, my heart aches for his wife and children. I hope they have the resilience to remake their lives.
Colin Thiele died aged 85 or thereabouts. One of his best-known books is Storm Boy, though he wrote many others. One of my best childhood memories is lying in bed on a Sunday morning, the sun streaming over me, listening to Storm Boy on the radio and crying copiously over Mr Percival, then trying to hide the fact that I was crying when my mum came into the room. Many years later, George took me to visit the Coorong where it was set, and I fell in love with the bleakness and wildness of it, and the amazing bird life. Definitely one of the most special places I have ever visited.
Since I started writing this post a couple of days ago, Peter Brock has also died, also doing the dangerous thing for which he was famous (motor racing, for non-aussies).
It was also a momentous week for us personally. Wombat's school does a whole school musical every second year, and so far Wombat has totally refused to get involved. It has always been a fraught time for us because he has become more and more autistic as the preparations ramp up, and I have always ended up pulling him out of school for a couple of weeks around the time of the actual production. This year I assumed the same would happen, but lo and behold, he insisted on participating and was JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN. It was extremely emotional for us to watch him up on stage singing along with all the other kids, just like a 'normal' kid. He has had a really great year, except for the appearance of rapidly worsening OCD (but at least it wasn't Tourettes as I had thought - not yet, anyway!) I was as proud of him on Tuesday night as I have ever been of Baby Bear when she was the star of the show - it was an even bigger acomplishment for him.
And I have taken the plunge and decided to do something serious about my future health, and filled in paperwork and got confirmation of dates after much research and great trepidation. I am going to have lap band surgery to help me with my spiralling weight, and hopefully that will help (if not cure totally) my CFS and fibromylagia. Of course the surgeoun does not believe in CFS and thinks it is totally to do with my weight, but then he's a surgeon, isn't he, and if you can't cut it out or sew it up, it can't exist, can it? I am having the op on October 12th and I am terrified, but I know it will be a really good thing to do. In the meantime I have had to have lots of blood tests (I felt like Tony Hancock after they filled SIX TUBES with my blood yesterday) and have to have a sleep study done tomorrow night - at home, but still a nuisance. Then oif course there will be pain and starvation and other icky things, but in the long run I know it will be a GOOD THING.
We lost two great Australians this week ... one in-your-face loudmouth who was actually a superb naturalist and conservationist, and one wonderful author who I have loved since childhood.
The whole world knows about the death of Steve Irwin. Presumably the stingray was a contract killer called The Jackal who has now snuck off to South America with his ill-gotten gains, paid off by Australia's much-abused reptiles. Seriously, my heart aches for his wife and children. I hope they have the resilience to remake their lives.
Colin Thiele died aged 85 or thereabouts. One of his best-known books is Storm Boy, though he wrote many others. One of my best childhood memories is lying in bed on a Sunday morning, the sun streaming over me, listening to Storm Boy on the radio and crying copiously over Mr Percival, then trying to hide the fact that I was crying when my mum came into the room. Many years later, George took me to visit the Coorong where it was set, and I fell in love with the bleakness and wildness of it, and the amazing bird life. Definitely one of the most special places I have ever visited.
Since I started writing this post a couple of days ago, Peter Brock has also died, also doing the dangerous thing for which he was famous (motor racing, for non-aussies).
It was also a momentous week for us personally. Wombat's school does a whole school musical every second year, and so far Wombat has totally refused to get involved. It has always been a fraught time for us because he has become more and more autistic as the preparations ramp up, and I have always ended up pulling him out of school for a couple of weeks around the time of the actual production. This year I assumed the same would happen, but lo and behold, he insisted on participating and was JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN. It was extremely emotional for us to watch him up on stage singing along with all the other kids, just like a 'normal' kid. He has had a really great year, except for the appearance of rapidly worsening OCD (but at least it wasn't Tourettes as I had thought - not yet, anyway!) I was as proud of him on Tuesday night as I have ever been of Baby Bear when she was the star of the show - it was an even bigger acomplishment for him.
And I have taken the plunge and decided to do something serious about my future health, and filled in paperwork and got confirmation of dates after much research and great trepidation. I am going to have lap band surgery to help me with my spiralling weight, and hopefully that will help (if not cure totally) my CFS and fibromylagia. Of course the surgeoun does not believe in CFS and thinks it is totally to do with my weight, but then he's a surgeon, isn't he, and if you can't cut it out or sew it up, it can't exist, can it? I am having the op on October 12th and I am terrified, but I know it will be a really good thing to do. In the meantime I have had to have lots of blood tests (I felt like Tony Hancock after they filled SIX TUBES with my blood yesterday) and have to have a sleep study done tomorrow night - at home, but still a nuisance. Then oif course there will be pain and starvation and other icky things, but in the long run I know it will be a GOOD THING.
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