Thursday, July 31, 2008

Lots of Good Stuff

So it seems with so much to write about, I've been procrastinating. On the weekend, I made a quick trip to Lethbridge to see Heidi and meet her parents. We went to her parents house and I got to meet them along with her sister and brother in law and their kids. We had a great visit with her Dad and Mom. Apparently, her Dad googled me, and as I have gone to great lengths to be findable, it was pretty easy for him. I guess Heidi thought it was sort of weird, but it seems like a pretty smart thing to do in my opinion.

The next day we went to Waterton, we gave a friend of Heidi's a ride and spent the day in the park. I didn't bring my camera, which was a foolish thing for me to do considering the fact that I am a photographer. Anyway, we had a really good time. I love to walk and talk and all the stuff that goes along with that, tripping, stubbing your toe things like that.

I had a really great time and I wish I could see her again this weekend. Stupid living in different cities. That's the worst.

Anyway on Tuesday, I had my sleep study done. It involved sticking some short tubes into my nostrils, taping a microphone to my neck, and putting some sort of heart rate monitor thing on my finger. So it was pretty much a normal night. It went well, but about halfway through the night the finger thing really started to bug me so I put it on a different finger. Well it stopped recording after that and I had to do the test again last night.

As I was clicking the buttons on the machine I noticed that my heart was beating at 68 BPM and I thought to myself, "Boy I'm sure relaxed". As I lay there I imagined a nice flat graph of my heart rate and the idea soothed me. Just as I was falling asleep and very relaxed, !!!Ding!!! a text message startled me, then I saw it was from Heidi. And at once I knew that the flat graph showing my heart rate had been ruined. First from the scare, then finding out the message was from Heidi! I imagined a huge spike on the graph and started laughing. I can only imagine what the doctor will think. I texted her back and she got me going twice more with messages before I fell asleep.

In the morning I woke up and saw on the machine's screen, not recording, device unplugged. I must have turned during the night, and the finger thing had come unplugged from the machine. I plugged it back in, but it was too late, I was already awake for the day. I removed my finger from the device, to ease unhooking the other monitoring devices and it started beeping right away! Boy, I thought, why couldn't it make that beeping when your unplugged? I would have gotten it plugged back in right away.

The next morning I told the sleep people what had happened. They told me that they would call if I had to do the test again. I guess they need six hours worth of data. I'm getting sick of sleeping connected to that machine but I really want to know if I have trouble breathing while I am asleep.

Anyway, I'm doing well, and my next planned day to visit Heidi is coming again in another seven days if I can keep myself away this weekend.

-Gary Milner

No comments: