January 2007

Breathing is a good thing

Doc had a sleep study performed last week. He went to a sleep clinic, got hooked up to a bunch of equipment (“all my tubes and wires!”), and did his best to have a crappy night’s sleep, as is the norm for him. Turns out that he stops breathing an average of 34 times per hour. Also, he rarely enters REM sleep. So now he has this nifty machine called a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) that gives him a constant stream of air that helps keep his nose and throat open while he sleeps. It’s pretty small and quiet (I can barely hear it) and he no longer snores. Wednesday morning I got out of the shower and found him awake, cleaning the bathroom sink, singing. Had they replaced my regular husband with Folger’s Crystals?! He remembered the dreams he’d had, which rarely happens, and he said he felt, and I quote, “pretty good,” which I don’t believe I have ever heard him say upon awakening. I have great expectations and high hopes for this treatment. I know it’s going to take a while for him to recover from years of exhaustion and sleep deprivation, but it’s looking good so far. And there’s no telling what kind of impact that it may have on other areas of his life. I text messaged him the other day with a CPAP smiley: :@)—[]

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One resolution resolved

I managed to complete one of my New Year’s resolutions, only four days into the year. Not bad, eh?! I went to an ob/gyn to talk about all the problems I’ve been having lately. (The squeamish should stop reading right here). I explained that I’ve been having approximately 2 periods per month since September. He did a sonogram (whee! what fun) and they discovered two things: 1) my IUD is situated incorrectly, and 2) my ovaries are riddled with cysts. Either or both of these things could be what has been causing my recent problems. The cysts are benign, and they do eventually disappear on their own, but new ones keep forming in me. Each one that disappears leaves behind a little scar tissue, and the scar tissue is almost always the site where ovarian cancer forms. And guess what kind of cancer runs strongly in my family? He was surprised that I have an IUD, since he said that normally they don’t put them in women who haven’t had babies because our uteruses (uteri?) are usually too small to properly hold them in place. That’s why mine shifted — inadequate uterus. He recommended that they pull out the IUD and put me back on birth control pills. I wasn’t wild about this idea because the whole reason that I got an IUD in the first place was so I wouldn’t have to take hormone supplements every day of my life. He explained that the IUD was very likely CAUSING the cysts in the first place, and also that birth control pills have been shown in numerous studies to decrease the risk of breast and ovarian cancer by up to 90%. If he were to take out the IUD, my cysts would probably go away on their own, and the […]

Read MoreOne resolution resolved