My New Sleep Journey

A few months ago I told my doctor my stamina has been waning. I couldn't do a lot of my usual activities like cooking and gardening. The last time I was able to scrub our laundry area was January last year. After that my energy continued to dwindle. I brought this up with my doctors and they had me do pulmo rehab. It helped a lot especially since I easily 

My new pulmo is also a sleep specialist and recommended I do a sleep test. I had been having difficulty sleeping for a few years now and I usually wake up still exhausted. I finally did the test last October. Results showed I have sleep apnea. My doctor had me try using a CPAP machine while I was confined in early November. 

When I got home I was able to obtain a CPAP machine. I got confined again, so I only started using it two weeks ago when my throat felt much better. I wanted to be stable before I started using it again. After my post-discharge consultations I started using the CPAP machine again. I have since not skipped a night. 

From my Fitbit

I honestly don't understand the stats from the CPAP machine. I'll leave my doctor to interpret that. My stamina had further declined after my confinement, but it improved a lot once I started using the CPAP machine. To test my stamina I tried gardening last week and re-potted a few plants. By Christmas I was able to cook and bake again. Hooray!

My doctor also said that sleep is essential when you want to lose weight. I was surprised to see my weight started decreasing and I was at my lowest weight all year by Christmas day. Even with the meal plans my weight lose stagnated. Proper sleep is truly key if you want to lose weight. I hope I will finally reach my ideal weight by next Christmas! 

I will re-start my pulmo rehab after new year. My doctors wanted me to fully recover first and let me slack off for Christmas (haha). Better sleep will also help me cope better with my medical conditions. It will help not make things worse and that's what we're after. To be stable so we can make more happier memories together. 

#BeKind #StaySafe 

I Did a Sleep Test

One of the things I've been struggling with is falling asleep. More often than not I still feel tired when I wake up in the morning. My Fitbit tells me my oxygen saturation while asleep when I wake up. It used to go down to 93 to 94% before I started pulmo rehab. It has improved, but I still feel tired and my energy is still limited most days. 

My doctors have been working on finding ways to improve my endurance. I've done my regular tests and my new pulmo is also a sleep expert. He appraised me and Sweetie and recommended we do a sleep test. I finally did it the other day. Told the medtech it should be easy peasy since I just need to sleep. We were lucky because we were able to do it at home. 

Not yet wired at this point.

So I thought it would be a walk in the park compared to other tests I've done in the past. I knew they were going to stick some wires on me, but I didn't expect it to be a lot. It took 30 minutes for them to stick everything on me. Good thing my PT advised me not to use conditioner because they needed to stick stuff on my head. It wasn't easy. 

I was fighting sleep the whole day, but was told not to take a nap. After an hour and half of paperwork, setting up the machines and wiring me, I finally settled in and tried to sleep. It took awhile before I fell asleep. Sleeping while there are strangers monitoring you and not being able to curl up on my side was hard. They also moved me whenever I defaulted to my usual position. At some point they also put a mask on me. It made me feel like I was wearing Darth Vader's mask, haha. 

Got the results and I apparently have moderate sleep apnea. I have to schedule to see my doctor to find out what we need to do. Hopefully, it would help my quality of life since there's so much I want to do at home. Pulmo rehab has been helping, at least I can do one activity per day now versus 2 to 3 activities per week. I was told to rest though since I have the tendency to push hard whenever I feel okay, haha.