Jesus is for the Wounded

What Do a Furnace and a Sleep Lab have in Common?

Published on December 5, 2012December 5, 2012 by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

Looks like the Doc is a duck or about to diagnose, well who knows what?

Far fetched you say? Not according to my experience in a Sleep Lab last night! If I understand this correctly, my yet unnamed Sleep Doc’s report will look something like this:

7:30 p.m. Arrive at sleep lab with way too much stuff packed to keep me busy, plus my pillow and minus my shampoo. Oops. Check-in paperwork.

8:00 p.m. Dinner from a zip lock bag of ingredients from my special “anti-seizure” diet. The HGTV marathon begins. We don’t have cable or dish at home. I’m jazzed! Love it or List It. Yeah baby!

8:30 p.m. Get approval for a later bedtime since I usually can’t fall asleep until 2 or 3 in the morning. So they’ll confine me to bed at 11:30 p.m. and I can lay there in the dark with them looking at me through camera behind the black plexiglass window on the ceiling. I could arrange some funny faces or something. I’ll have the time to think of something until I fall asleep . . .

9:00 p.m. Demo and trial of a CPAP mask and machine. Talk about feeling suffocated, yipes! Actually felt relaxed 20 minutes later and wanted to keep it. Not so fast, Missy, as you only get to use it during the study if the test results the first half of the night warrant it. Notice that this means they will be waking me up to suffocate me if I warrant it! Modern medicine.

10:00 p.m. Hardware glued and taped to my head, ribs, face, and legs. Fingertip vice called a pulse ox secured to my right index finger. Lots of colored wires (around 20) are attached to a blue box that would put the back of your computer tower to shame, and hung around my neck. Great. I’m feeling sleepy already, not!

11:20 p.m. Get the “10 minute warning” that they are coming in to put me to bed. How nice. No pillow mints though. No bed either. There’s a Murphy bed in the wall that hasn’t come down yet. Modern medicine indeed.

11:30 p.m. Tech “K” tells me I have to turn off the t.v. and I haven’t found out if the couple will keep their remodeled duplex without the promised new kitchen and bathroom or spring for the $949,000 move-up mansion. Did I mention they came in 5 minutes before the end of the HGTV program twice already? Geez! Anyways, she helps me get settled as best I can into bed with not one but two probes in my nose in addition what appears to be the back of the fuse box connected to my body. Time for bed! Lights go out. Seizure-like tic attacks begin. No need to make faces; the show has begun.

12:00 – 2:00 a.m. Up to the bathroom twice, tossing and turning, praying, praying, praying. Tics on and off with sweats. Sweating persists throughout the night. Why is this mattress so hot? Room temperature feels warm then I’m not sure. Tech “K” comes in twice with each trip to the bathroom to disconnect me from the secret control panel in the cabinet next to the cabinet holding my bed. Remember the old Dick Van Dyke T.V. episodes where the Murphy bed folds back up with the person in it? Yeah, I’m remembering it about now.

2:30 a.m. Start crying and can’t stop. The sound of the furnace is just too loud. My nose itches just too much. I can’t get comfortable and I can’t sleep. I’m sick and tired of being poked, tested, probed, scanned, analyzed, drugged, drained, and worse. I feel very small. And Jesus meets me here.

2:30 a.m. Tech “K” comes in to try to figure out why I’m crying and how to get me to stop. Do I want to stop the test? Sit up? Stop the test? Wondered why she asked me the last question twice. Maybe I’m a handful. She said the most interesting patient she had pretended to be riding a bicycle in the air while sleeping. Guess my show wasn’t that good through the black plexiglass window after all. Then again, I mention the loud furnace. In seconds, we are walking to another room and find that it is much quieter. Praise the Lord! And she says it’s no problem to move to another room. We pack up, bring down another bed hidden in the wall of cabinets and before long I’m in bed again. This room is warmer; feels good initially . . .

I think I fell asleep sometime around 3:00 a.m. after some tic jolts and a few tosses this way and that way. I probably woke up six times (before they said it was 9:00 a.m.), overheated from underneath. Must be a down feather pillow top mattress or something. And before I knew it, the voice on the speaker from above was saying, “good morning Julie, it’s time to get up now.” A few tic zips rang in the new day and then Tech “J” appeared. Tech “K” has gone home. It’s now over for me too: time to unplug, de-stick, and crawl home. We made it Lord.

This day was a rough one, with a straining feeling from broken sleep and feeling torn between napping and sticking it out to go to bed early. Tried the latter and wasn’t able to sleep, again! A host of flu-like symptoms distracted me all day long. It’s one of those times when you wished you could throw up and get it over with — twice. Ate lightly including the prescribed portion of cooked rabbit. Yes, I have a weird diet to match my weird story. (See blog entitled, “Rascally Rabbit,” for more!)

What do a furnace and a sleep lab have in common? One keeps the lab working and the other works despite the furnace. Modern medicine. Have you taken yours today?

It’s Craft Show Season and I’m In

Published on November 29, 2012November 29, 2012 by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

As Saturday gets closer, I’m as excited as I am nervous about what the day will bring. It’s a big day for me, for sure.

8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. EST Lord willing I’ll be participating in my first Craft Show at a local church. My display is spread out on the living room floor, ready to go with both knotted hemp and gem/mineral stone selections from Trinity Jewelry by Design. I am humbled at how the Lord has used this business to keep me going during the trials of Lyme Disease recovery. Up late at night, working on the jewelry, posting pictures at my online shop, or researching gem/mineral stone descriptions, this has kept me sane. I did not lose my mind to the forgetfulness, spaciness, brain hiccups after all. Praise the Lord! Now I just need to finish up a few things, set up on Friday night and somehow get my butt out of bed (without seizure attacks or headache, please) and to the church by “way too early” Saturday morning. Who buys crafts at 8 in the morning? Geez. Maybe the early hours are for the Cookie Walk that’s at the same time?

And if I get there, I’ll be able to do what is needed because I love this kind of venue. The sweats, the word-finding difficulties, the head pressure, the pain won’t matter as I will be in my element. Let’s hope the budding throat and ear infection doesn’t take hold either. If it’s spiritual warfare rising up then I know there’s victory in Christ Jesus. See Romans 8:38. No worries there, the issues that are coming up are just “temporary setbacks,” eh?

As if this isn’t enough, there’s another very important appointment at 3:00 p.m. I am honored to be the “guest patient” at a special training course in chiropractic neurology per the invitation of my family doctor. Perhaps they will find the key to the seizure attacks and the cure. Perhaps my doctor will have in hand the result of the sleep-deprived EEG last week, coupled with all my test results. And with a sleep study scheduled just 2 days later on December 3rd, there should be plenty of data to come up with a plan to annihilate these debilitating episodes. Hope is on the way! I’ll bet after the energy stretch of the craft show in the morning, there will be plenty of fireworks for the class to witness. Humbling to have to be a guinea pig. Hopeful for some help, in the end.

So now it’s time to prep some product info. for my friend’s gem and mineral stone jewelry. It’s all in the mix. I feel sick. I’ll do it sick anyways. It’s Craft Show season, and I’m in! Cool beans.

By the way, my website is: www.trinityjewelrybydesign.com

Second Opinion and Such

Published on November 29, 2012November 29, 2012 by Jesus is for the Wounded1 Comment

The VitaMix is on its way back from the shop. I’ve missed my blender on steroids!

Flexibility is Key

Published on November 25, 2012November 25, 2012 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

DSCF7245 — Yellow roses and purple irises for our anniversary!

Today is the five year anniversary for my husband, Steve and me. I struggled to try to figure out how to “celebrate” since I am still battling Lyme Disease and don’t feel well most of the time. Let’s see, a little creative flexibility would be in order:

Dinner at Biaggi’s: we checked local restaurant menus online, made a couple of calls then decided on Biaggi’s as there’s enough on my allergy-free list to comprise a dinner. Once there, the host seated us in a quieter section of the restaurant (without even asking!) and the waiter was able to turn the music below my sensitivity level. And yes, the waiter was able to have a salad made for me, picking and choosing from all the acceptable ingredients on the salad menu. The coconut yogurt dressing came with me, packed in my purse. Result: a romantic anniversary dinner with my beloved Steve.

Movie date: started having a headache (the pre-seizure attack kind) on the way to the theater so we stopped at Walgreens for some OTC meds. Then we sat in the parking lot until the headache subsided but the seizure attacks came anyways. I cried and Stevers drove us to two Red Box DVD dispenser machines. Only problem was that most of the movies were either obscure or rated R. Next, we came home with mixed emotions and Steve’s daughter, Christina mentioned that you can rent and download DVDs at Amazon.com for $.99. Seemed like workable alternative then the seizure attacks returned. (Guess the other unknown ingredients in the dinner got to me? Hard to say . . .) The attacks ended and we relaxed for awhile before staging a movie theater in the office with a ton of pillows and comforters. Result: Pixar flick “UP” made for a sweet movie date.

So you can see how grateful I am for so many things this evening. Steve takes even the weirdest, ugliest, most stressful things in stride; these qualities make a HUGE difference in this time of illness. Oh how I am blessed to be his wife and partner in this life. I hope that when I am called to serve him that I will be as gracious! Just finally figuring out what to do to celebrate our anniversary was a huge gift since I wasn’t sure we could do anything at all. Thank you Lord for guiding us and providing a sweet evening together.

Flexibility is key in celebrating an anniversary in a time of illness or trials. Flexibility is key in living everyday with gratitude and hope. There is sweetness not to be missed, we just gotta look for it and go for it! If it don’t work one way, try another. We can celebrate so much more than the special dates and events. And if we have faith in the Lord and we let Him guide our paths and bunny trails, well, the outcome is Providential indeed. Let’s see, what can we celebrate today? :J

Habakkuk 3:17-19

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁷Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

¹⁹The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.

New Check Mark for the Bucket Non-list

Published on November 21, 2012November 21, 2012 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

From Akron Children’s Hospital Website:

What It Is

An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a test used to detect abnormalities related to electrical activity of the brain. This procedure tracks and records brain wave patterns. Small metal discs with thin wires (electrodes) are placed on the scalp, and then send signals to a computer to record the results. Normal electrical activity in the brain makes a recognizable pattern. Through an EEG, doctors can look for abnormal patterns that indicate seizures and other problems.

Why It’s Done

The most common reason an EEG is performed is to diagnose and monitor seizure disorders. EEGs can also help to identify causes of other problems such as sleep disorders and changes in behavior. EEGs are sometimes used to evaluate brain activity after a severe head injury or before heart or liver transplantation.

What it looks like is pictured below. Yes, you feel like a child, completely humbled, at the mercy of your tech, and invaded into the most personal space you have: your brain. I guess they got some good firework data on me ’cause the seizure-like tics were flyin’ high as soon as I lain on the gurney. Geez. Glad that’s over.

Coconut oil and celery anyone? Cheers.