GoodTodd’s blog

Well, it's been one month since I started posting about my sleep issues and my attempts to create a new sleep schedule.  It's been a week since I've made any daily posts and the reason for that is simple -- the wheels completely fell off my sleep schedule last week.  I found it harder to get to bed by midnight.  I found it harder to get up at 8am.  I found it much harder to avoid mid-day naps.  Before I knew it, my midnight-to-8a schedule had morphed into a 4a-1p schedule.  Needless to say, it was difficult to write about such disappointing results.  ;)

Last night, I decided to get back on the horse.  I got home from Fourth of July festivities a little after midnight, so by the time I got settled in and cooled down, it was 1am.  Sleep came slowly.  I finally crashed sometime after 3am.  I hit the snooze alarm a couple of times after 8a, but there was no snooze button on the cat, so I got up at 8:15a.  Not too bad for the first day back.  :)

So, Monday I got the results from my sleep study.  It sounds like I stop breathing slightly more often than the average person (34 times vs 30), but I hold my breath much longer than average (68 seeconds!!) and I'm more likely to stop breathing on my back.  So the answer is...  another sleep study.  This time, they'll hook me up to all the contraptions plus a C-PAP and they'll calibrate the pressure on it during the night.  If that goes well, they'll keep me the next day for a day study and make me take a 30-minute nap every two hours.  My appointment starts the night of July 18th, but if they get any cancellations, I'll try to move it up.  While I'm not looking forward to another sleep study, I'm reallyreally looking forward to getting to the end of this process.  If the gizmo helps me get recuperative sleep, I'm all for it.  :D

The weight loss is still going well.  I promised myself I'd go clothes shopping if I hit 210 pounds...  and that was two pounds ago.  That puts me at 30 pounds off my peak weight over the course of about five weeks.  I'm much happier with my appearance, but there's still a lot of work to do.

So, all in all, it's been a very productive month.  My sleep schedule is far from perfect, but even when it completely blows up, it still more closely resembles structure than it did a month ago.  The apnea problem is two weeks from being solved.  And I'm not nearly such a lardass.

Looks like treadmill time.  :D

Another bad brain night.

I started my cooldown at 11p, but my mind was stil going like gangbusters at midnight.  Instead of going to bed and getting frustrated at my inability to sleep, I decided to extend my cooldown period.  At 1a, I was very tired, but my brain was still active, so I decided to try to crash in my recliner -- a kind of half-cooldown, half-bed approach.  It still took about an hour to fall asleep.

On the other hand, I was awake at 7:30a, and it was relatively easy to get up.  I'm yawning my face off, but at least I'm adhering to the schedule.  Kinda.  :)

What a lousy night of sleep.

I went to bed at about 12:30a with about 15 minutes of cooldown under my belt.  My mind was racing.  I think I got to sleep the first time at about 2:30a and woke up several times during the night.  At 6:30a, I threw in the towel and got out of bed.  I have things I need to work on this morning, and I was feeling far too... angry to have any chance of getting any last-minute sleep before the alarm clock went off.

I think I'm going to skip treadmilling this morning.  I'm feeling a little nauseous, and I don't want to push my luck.

It's been three weeks, and things are going exceptionally well.  Naturally, last night was an exception.  ;)

Last night, I went out with BadTodd and Brandan to watch a rasslin' PPV.  It was a pretty lame card as it turns out, but any excuse to eat Buffalo wings is a good excuse in my book.  The only problem was that I was drinking iced tea all night, and I had quite the caffeine build-up by the end of the show.  I stopped by the office on the way home, but I was too wired to do any real work.  I got home about 11:15p, jumped online, and finally logged off about 12:30a.  I didn't get to sleep until about 2:30a and finally got up about 11a.

So, this reinforces in my mind something I knew all along -- caffeine will wreck my sleep schedule if I consume it too late in the day.  On the other hand, I learned something cool about my metabolism:  a pound of wings can't overcome a half-hour of treadmill.  I lost another pound.  Yay!  :D

I started the cooldown at 11:30p and hit the hay at midnight.  Asleep by 12:30a and awake by 7:30a.  I crawled out of bed when the alarm went off at 8a. 

That's more like it.  :D

I haven't treadmilled in a few days, but today's the day I get back into the habit.  My weight has been holding steady at 215, which represents a 23 pound loss from my pre-sleep schedule peak.  The best part is that it's noticeable to other people, and that's just the kind of encouragement I need to keep working on it.  There're still many pounds to go!  :)

I didn't have time to blog yesterday, so I'm going to put up two days back-to-back.  Time-compresion blogging!  :D

I was starting to feel really tired around 9p, but I held off on starting my cooldown until 10:30p.  I sprawled out on the couch and watched SportsCenter until 11:30p when I finally decided to give up and crashed right there.  I was asleep by midnight.  Despite waking up at 8a, I stayed on the couch until 10a.  I was a tired little camper.

The part of the sleep scheduling where I get tired before bedtime is working very well.  The part of the schedule where I get out of bed at the same time every day is only missing that spark of willpower that actually gets me out of bed.  :D

Well, I slept like crap, but I slept like crap during my sleep window, so I can't complain.  ;)

I started my cooldown around 11:30p and was in bed by midnight.  It took a while to get to sleep (probably 1:30a-ish) and I woke up a couple of times.  I spaced off turning on the alarm clock, but woke up at 8:20a all by myself.

I think part of the problem was the air conditioning.  The AC repair guys got done with me about 7p-ish, at which time it was a balmy 88 degrees in my living room.  I took refuge at the office for a couple of hours, but when I returned, it was only down to 85 or so.  So, when I crashed, I left the portable AC unit in the bedroom running.  This morning, it's 76 degrees in the living room and there are penguins living in my bedroom.  :D

No time for treadmilling this morning -- there's a mountain of stuff to do at work, and a couple of errands to be run before that.  It's definitely shower time.  :)

A pretty good night.  I went to bed at 11:45p without a cooldown.  I was asleep by 12:30a.  A phone call woke me at 7:30a, so I got up early.  Pretty cakey.

I got another phone call at 7:45a.  It was the gas company (the folks who handle my service contract) telling me they wanted to push up my air conditioner repair appointment to this morning.  So, that's a plus.  ;)

Speaking of appointments, I got a call from the sleep study yesterday.  They have my results.  Unfortunately, they need my doctor to go over my results with me.  He's out of the office next week, so the soonest they could schedule the appointment was July 2nd.  I asked if one of the other doctors could give me the results, and the gal said "probably not".  So, I'll have to wait a while longer to see how my diagnosis looks.  Hopefully it isn't life-threatening.  ;)

It's still stinkin' hot in the condo ('bout 80 degrees) and I need to do some cleaning before the AC guy shows up, so it's looking like a no-go on the treadmill again this morning.  But tomorrow (or maybe tonight?) I should be able to hit it with renewed vigor.

I'll chalk Day Sixteen up to making up for lost sleep.  :D

I started my cooldown at 11p by flopping in a recliner.  I fell asleep in said recliner by 11:15p and spent the night there.  My alarm clock, on my nightstand on the other side of the house, went off at 8a, but I kept sleeping 'til 10a.  That's more sleep than I would have liked, but given the half-assed amount of sleep I got during the sleep study, I probably needed it.  :)

I'm going to skip the morning treadmill session to try to make some time.  I might do some treadmilling tonight, assuming I get home at a reasonable hour and it isn't stinkin' hot in the house.

So, yesterday was my appointment with the sleep doctor.  He took my weight, blood pressure (a lot higher than it was two weeks ago), gave me a brief physical examination, asked a few sleep-related questions, and brought in a lady to schedule a sleep study.  As luck would have it, they had an opening last night.  So I pounced on it like a hobo on a ham sammich.

Lemme tellya, sleep studies blow.  The ladies working the graveyard shift were awesome, don't get me wrong, but the number of electrodes they had to attach to my head was decidedly not awesome.  That, plus the chest monitors, feet monitors, oxygen sensor on my finger and their strict Must Wear Shirt policy, and I was covered with distractions.  I know that I slept at some point during the night (one of the nurses woke me when she came in to move my oxygen sensor to the other hand), but it felt like I spent most of the night awake and increasingly frustrated that I couldn't sleep.

I started trying to sleep at 9p and I was awake when they disconnected me at 5:30a.  They assured me that they got good data, so that's a plus.  They tell patients to expect to hear results within 10 business days, but they told me that it generally doesn't take that long.  All I know is that I really don't want to do that again.  Not without a fistful of NyTol or Tylenol PM or a mallet or something.

So, it's 6:30a, I'm kind of tired and I've got my whole day ahead of me.  It's looking like treadmill time.