Why did I have all these procedures you might ask? Well...I don't sleep well. I never have. Ever since I can remember I have had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Once I do fall asleep I have crazy, sometimes very scary, but always exhausting vivid dreams. Very rarely do I remember many times where I didn't have these dreams. The worst though was sleeping on my back. I can never fall asleep if I am laying on my back. I will just lay there all night. If I accidentally rolled on to my back while I was sleeping I would have night terrors and would be scared to go back to sleep for a long time. Because of this, I am always tired. However, because this has been going on my whole life I just took it to be normal. I was just tired because that is how life is.
In addition to the crazy sleep, I also get sick a lot. Not knock down, can't get out of bed for a week sick, but a sore throat, loss of energy, general ickiness kind of sick. Often it would get so bad that it developed into tonsillitis and then I would be very sick. Again, just thought that was the way life is.
Then there was the occasional swelling of my uvula (the dangly thing in the back of the throat.) When that happened it was scary and very inconvenient because the swollen uvula would choke me if I moved my head in any direction number one and number two I couldn't talk AT ALL, not even a whisper, because that would also trigger the choking, so there were days that I was totally unable to do anything. The swelling would last anywhere from 3 to 12 hours. That I knew wasn't normal but when I talked to my doctor about it he said that it was just a freak thing but nothing to worry about and there was nothing he could do.
About 6 months ago I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I talked to my doctor (not the same one I mentioned before as he moved) and asked him what I could do. He did two things that got all this in motion. First, he ordered a sleep test. It is where you wear an oxygen sensor on your finger while you sleep for one night. The second thing he did was refer me to an ENT for chronic tonsillitis.
The ENT looked in my throat and said without a doubt I would need my tonsils removed because they were so large. He also noticed that the tonsil tissue we all have on the back of our tounges for me was very large and might also need to be removed. I asked him if that is why sometimes my food felt like it was just sitting on a table in the back of my throat and wouldn't go down. He said that would be very possible. Then he looked in my nose and said that the turbinates were also larger than normal and that I probably wasn't getting enough air when I breathe through my nose and that is why I am a mouth breather. He said that he wanted to reduce the turbinates as well. Then I asked him about the swollen uvula. He asked me if I snore and the answer is yes. He said that because I have so much extra tissue in my throat that occasionally when I snore my poor uvula just gets pummeled all night long causing it to swell. He asked me if I had done a sleep study for sleep apnea. I told him that I had just done the overnight sleep test and had been referred to a sleep doctor but hadn't met with him yet. He said to come back and see him after I had talked to the sleep doctor because I would likely need more than just a tonsillectomy.
A week later I met with the sleep doctor. He said that the oxygen test came back with some concerning results. It looked like I have sleep apnea (where you stop breathing when you sleep) but that it might be severe. I was to take an overnight sleep study asap to determine the severity. The study would also see why I had trouble falling and staying asleep. I went to that sleep study and wondered how in the world they got any information at all. The hooked me up to so many wires that I wondered if there was a spot on my body that wasn't being monitored. I had 20 electrodes on my skull, one on my temple, above each eye, on my chin, below my chin, 6 on my chest, one on each leg, two sensor bands around my lungs, and an oxygen tube in my nose with a little tube that went down over my mouth. They took all the lead wires from these sensors and zipped them into a pouch behind my back and then told me to go to sleep. Did they forget that I was there because I had trouble falling and staying asleep?! I did my best to go to sleep. I tossed and turned (as best as I could with all the wires hooked up to me) for hours. After I had finally fallen asleep they turned on the lights and the nurse and doctor asked me some questions through the little speaker by the bed. I told them I was trying to sleep and they apologized but then proceeded to continue talking to each other while the speaker to my room was on. I was so frustrated and getting so angry because I was so tired and this was miserable. Finally, at what felt like 4am the lights turn off and the nurse comes in to tell me that the test is all over and it is time to go home. I was so confused. It hit me that the time I spent being frustrated with the intrusions and my lack of sleep was just another one of my vivid dreams. Imagine that...I actually did fall asleep with all those wires on me. Too bad that I felt like I was awake the whole time and was more tired now then when I started. Of course, that is nothing new. I often wake up more tired than when I go to sleep because of my exhausting vivid dreams. I also wondered why they were telling me to go home at 4 in the morning. I was so very tired and didn't feel rested at all. Turns out that what felt like a very paltry 2, maybe 3 hours of sleep was really all night long. It was actually 7:30am which made me feel so disoriented. Needless to say, as soon as I got home I took a long nap.
The results of the sleep study showed that I was not going into REM cycles regularly when I sleep. Normally a person will cycle in and out of REM 4 to 5 times a night. The only time I hit REM sleep was just before I had to get up in the morning. During that cycle, my oxygen levels dropped over 70 times (it was about a 1 hour period of time) and my oxygen level got down to 71. Anything below 90 is a concern, anything below 80 is dangerous. My mom was told that an oxygen level of 71 was in the danger area of causing a stroke. That made me nervous. I was ordered a C-PAP machine that was supposed to push oxygen down my lungs while I sleep and keep me from having a stroke in the middle of the night.
The fitting for the mask was very odd. I began to panic when he placed the mask over my face thinking that I was going to suffocate. I survived and found that if I relax it was very easy to breathe and started using the machine every night. It didn't last long though. Sometime during the night, I would take the mask off while I was asleep. That defeated the whole purpose. Seeing that the mask was not going to work for me my ENT suggested that I have the UP3 surgery in addition to the other procedures designed to make breathing at night easier for me. The date was set and even though I was scared, I was looking forward to breathing and sleeping normally.
Surgery went well and I was sent home the next day. The first thing I wanted when I woke up was a big juicy hamburger but that wasn't going to happen for a long time. I no longer had any tonsils or the dangly thing in the back of my throat, just a lot of stitches so solid food was out of the question. It was a very painful and LONG recovery. Every single swallow (you don't know how many times you swallow your own spit until each and every time is excruciating) was dreaded for 2 1/2 weeks. I slept sitting up (or at least tried to) for the first week afraid to lay down because I felt like I would suffocate if I did. My homework from the doctor was to keep hydrated knowing that I would most likely refuse any liquids for a few weeks. I was super hungry and food smelled so good but the thought of swallowing anything thicker than water was terrifying so a good side effect was that I lost a lot of weight after the surgery...lol
After 2 1/2 weeks, the doctor cut the stitches out of my throat (another freaky experience) and life began to return to normal. It was a slow recovery but well worth it. Not only do I finally get restful sleep but I can breathe through my nose. I had no idea how clogged my nose was and how hard it was to get enough air until it wasn't hard anymore. I tell my doctor that he is a miracle worker and I will literally take in long slow breaths of air through my nose each and every day now just because I can. I feel such gratitude towards the doctor with each breath. I am no longer able to make fake snoring sounds when teasing my little ones and I have to be careful when drinking water in a drinking fountain so that the water doesn't go up my nose instead, but it was all so worth it. I would do it all again in a heartbeat knowing how much better my quality of life is now. How grateful I am for modern medicine. Sleep well my friends...I know I will be. : )
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