The man in the comfort gel mask.

Before I get started, I'd like to thank everyone for their comments and prayers concerning my blog from last week. I think some of my hopelessness was due to an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, and on Monday night, I went in for a sleep study to find out exactly what that exhaustion was caused by.

The sleep study itself was an experience in itself. I arrived to meet Ed, the gentleman who would be taking care of me for the majority of my stay. He directed me to my room, which had the general appearance of a hotel room, complete with queen-size bed and cable TV. The only difference was this massive box on the wall that I soon would be plugged into. I waited a little while, and my new friend Ed began attaching wires and sensors all over the place--nowhere inappropriate, but there were a heck of a lot of them--I think I counted 30 by the time he was done. There were EEG sensors, EKG sensors, a snore microphone, a finger oximeter, and a couple belts he put around my waist and chest to see what kind of expansion I was getting when I breathed.

The last, and most intriguing piece of equipment was a CPAP machine. For those of you that are unfamiliar, it stands for Continuous Positive Air Pressure. The CPAP machine combats sleep apnea, and since I had some symptoms that reminded Ed of apnea, he thought he'd get me some practice on it.

A quick course on sleep apnea: When you get into REM sleep, the muscles in your throat relax, especially when you're on your back. For most people, this doesn't create a problem. But for people with apnea, this tissue relaxes to the point where it closes off your airway, and you stop breathing for a very small amount of time. Eventually, the brain realizes it's not getting as much oxygen as it should, and it triggers you to move, ever so slightly, enough to get you breathing again. Apnea is considered more severe the more times an hour you go through this process (each incident is called an apnea). For me, we discovered at my deepest point of sleep, I was getting up around 30 times an hour. Now, this is considered moderate sleep apnea, but it's easy to see why I might be feeling exhausted, no?

What the CPAP machine does is keep your airway open by pushing air through your system by means of a mask you wear over your nose (see above). You can control the amount of pressure, as well as the humidity of the air, with this nifty little machine, and it's supposed to work wonders for sufferers of apnea.

As a result of my test, they recommended I get the CPAP machine for myself. I met with a nice man named Brent, who showed me all around my machine, and instructed me in cleaning and care of my new toy.

Well, I've written two really, really long posts, so I'm going to leave this one short. Basically, I'm able to stand the mask on my face for about 3 hours at this point, and the longer I use it, the better (hopefully) I will feel!

So wish me luck!