Bike odometer: 1193
Weight lost: 58 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 7
Hours billed last week: 41.5
Current reading:: 2107 Curious Word Origins, Says & Expressions by Charles Earle Funk, The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, Prey by Michael Crichton
Recent listening: Fatherfucker by Peaches, Coverville, DrugMusic, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me
Recent viewing: World Poker Tour, Heroes, NBA Draft Lottery, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (magicians), The Late Show with David Letterman (stupid pet tricks), 24 (last 6 episodes), NBA Conference Finals, The Gilmore Girls
Recent playing: Virus 2, Super Mario Bros. (emulated), Excite Truck, Light Sprites
Recently accomplished: Made doctor appointment, paid bills, recycling, garbage, yard debris, renewed prescription, cat box, mowed lawn, trimmed hedge, gorilla rack unloading, loading, unloading & assembly
Imperative To Do: RMA old Tivo drive, backup Thomas, backup Graham, backup Tina, renew BTA membership, sift through inbox, Bike Gallery, CDs to post office, return cans
Vital Statistics
Bike odometer: 1145
Weight lost: 62 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 8
Hours of sleep this afternoon: 4
Hours billed last week: 44
Current reading:: 2107 Curious Word Origins, Says & Expressions by Charles Earle Funk, The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, CSS Web Design for Dummies by Richard Mansfield
Recent listening: Coverville, The Mercury Anthology by Rod Stewart
Recent viewing: NBA Conference Semifinals, Countdown, The Newshour With Jim Lehrer, World Poker Tour, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Larry King Live, Saturday Night Live
Recent playing: Virus 2, Super Mario Bros. (emulated), Toejam and Earl (emulated)
Recently accomplished: Bike maintenance, sent Lalas, fixed caller ID
Imperative To Do: RMA old Tivo drive, backup Thomas, backup Graham, backup Tina, renew BTA membership, sift through inbox, pay bills, Bike Gallery, CDs to post office, make doctor appointment
Sleep News
Friday morning I had an appointment with my sleep doctor. The week before I had the data downloaded from my CPAP machine and they forwarded the results to my doctor.
He congratulated on my flawless “compliance” results (machine said I used it every night, but I know I missed one night with a head cold) and explained how I was doing. Even though I’m still experiencing several hypopnea events per hour, they only comprise .3% of my total sleep time, which is very good. He also examined my nose and throat and found that the swelling of my adenoids has decreased. All good news. I see him again in six months.
Saturday afternoon, after the football games and lunch, I settled in for some TV on the couch and soon fell asleep. I slept for several hours and woke in the early evening in time for dinner. At dinner, I noted that my throat felt sore when I swallowed. This was not the first time I had noticed this after napping and realized that it was because of snoring. Snoring makes the adenoids “flap” in the breeze which makes them swell. When they swell, they flap even worse. It really illustrates how important it is for me to use the CPAP every night.
Sleep update
The longer I use the CPAP and the wigkussen I got from slaapcity, the better my sleep seems to get. I’m no longer waking up because my mouth opens (as described earlier) and it isn’t waking Tina, either. So either it’s not happening or we’ve both grown used to it. I’m now sleeping all the way through the night and often wake up before my alarm. I haven’t been able to tell what time it is when that happens because it’s dark and I can’t really see the alarm on the other side of the bed with the mask on. However, I decided to just get up the other day when it happened and it was almost exactly seven hours after I had gone to bed. A few years ago I zeroed in on seven hours as the perfect amount of sleep – any more or less would make me feel tired. I think the fact that I’m waking up unassisted now after seven hours is an excellent sign that I’m returning to normal sleep patterns.
Take a look at these Mattress Sizes & Bed Size Dimensions I was looking up online to improve my good night sleep and back pain.
Next week I take the CPAP machine to the technician so she can read the results. It uses changes in air pressure and resistance to record a number of statistics. The week after, I have an appointment with my sleep doctor to discuss the CPAP stats and anything else I’d like to talk about, I am also going to see if I can start using the maternity pillow at night. It will be interesting to see how the machine’s log matches with the log that I started keeping when I began using the CPAP. The only complaint I have now is that my mouth is very dry when I wake but I doubt anything can be done about that.
Vital Statistics
Tina, Graham and I went car shopping today. We decided that we really needed at least one reliable car, so rather than replace the truck with another used truck, we’re going to get a new family car. Today we looked and and drove a Kia Sorento, a Scion xB and a Chevy HHR. The Sorento was nice and Kia has a great warranty, but they couldn’t come down to our price range. The HHR might be nice, but after driving the xB, there was really no question which car we would get. We’re going to finalize our financing options and might have a new Scion next week!
Thomas didn’t go with us today because he’s been at Cub Scout Camp all week. Tina has missed him greatly and we’re going to pick him up there tomorrow. I suspect that he’s hardly noticed we’re not there.
I may have mentioned a couple of weeks ago about spending the night at the hospital as part of a sleep study. The study confirmed that I have positional sleep apnia which means that I have an abnormal number of apnia episodes when I sleep on my back. I also exhibit apnia symptoms while I am in R.E.M. sleep. During the sleep study, if I would have shown apnia by 2:00 AM, they would have awoken me in order to fit me with a CPAP device. I did not meet the criteria and did not exhibit severe enough apnia until after I went into R.E.M.’s sometime after 2:00 AM. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when I awoke at 5:30 and realized that they had not awoken me. Later, the technician explained my situation and assured me that I would probably still be fitted for a CPAP on another night. Thus, I am scheduled for another study next week and I’m pretty sure it will be to do that very thing. I’ll write more later when I know more.
Bike odometer: 59 miles
Current reading: The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Taking The Long Way by Dixie Chicks, KBOO Bike Show, Humpy’s Soul Show
Recent viewing: Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Nature, Monk, Countdown, The Colbert Report
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Car shopping, recycling, garbage, paid bills, expense report, upgraded my DSL
Imperative To Do: Setup Airport Express, install network in Graham’s room, labels for my sister’s CDs
Cool link: Moving by bike
Vital Statistics
Tonight I sleep at the hospital so they can study my sleep. It’s very likely that I have sleep apnia and we’re hoping that the study results in a prescription for a CPAP machine.
Starting Sunday, I’ll be in San Francisco until Friday for the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.
Bike odometer: 27 miles (new battery)
Current reading: The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Prince by Machiavelli, I Love Being The Enemy by Reggie Miller and Gene Wojciechowski
Recent listening: Diver Down by Van Halen, Feels Like Home by Norah Jones, Spirit Trail by Bruce Hornsby, Running On Empty by Jackson Browne, Taking The Long Way by Dixie Chicks
Recent viewing: Monk, Sportscenter, Countdown, Rockstar: Supernova, Last Comic Standing
Recent playing: Snood
Recently accomplished: Trimmed the hedges, fixed the new extension cord I chopped with the hedge trimmer, burned CDs for my sister, bike tune-up, fixed watch
Imperative To Do: Truck shopping, Internet for Graham’s room, weed, send CDs to people
Cool link: Honey, why is the water bill so high?
Vital Statistics
Yow! I started this entry over 10 days ago! Time flies by in the summer. Tina’s dad, Leroy, was here to visit this week. The boys really enjoyed that. The NBA Finals are over and so I’m expecting some free time to become available, but it probably won’t work out that way.
The weather has been great here but it’s getting hot today. Probably need to put the air conditioner in the window.
Current reading: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, Smoke and Guns by Kirsten Baldock and Fabio Moon
Recent listening: Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers, NPR Story of the Day
Recent viewing: My Life On The D-List, NBA Finals, Sportscenter, Pardon the Interuption, Futurama, Cars
Recent playing: Poker Room
Recently accomplished: Deposited checks at the bank, mowed the lawn, stripped the picnic table, made appointment with sleep doctor
Imperative To Do: Install air conditioner, call Sears, bike repairs, get watch fixed, truck shopping, Internet for Graham’s room
Cool link: Flash Flood: Flash animation illustrating the sequence of events that led to the flooding of New Orleans.