Quick update

Just got home; here’s a quick update:

• Talked to my mother for a good little while this morning (and to Don for a bit). She’s not having the time of her life, but she’s doing better than she was yesterday, she’s in good spirits, all signs so far are that it is not a blood clot (which seems to be what her doctors were most eager to rule out) but pneumonia or pleurisy, and mirabile visu the food in the hospital is actually good!
• Despite leaving a couple of voicemail messages (with different people) and a piece of email with URGENT in the subject line, I have heard nothing from Fenway’s referrals department (or my nurse) about whether my referral will be processed in time for me to keep my sleep-specialist appointment tomorrow. So I’m going to go ahead and keep it, and cross my fingers and hope it gets paid for. (That’s just a consultation, not the actual study.) Fenway has some really awesome healthcare professionals, but they also have some significantly broken infrastructure.
• cathijosephine’s sleep study last night was a horribly gruelling experience, but it sounds like it produced useful data.
• Chickenfinger is still cute.
• Run Lola Run is still a hugely fun movie.

Health update

First of all, my mother does not have a blood clot. She does have pneumonia, and might have something else on top of that, but the scariest thing has been ruled out. Still in the hospital, but doing generally OK, for someone who’s in the hospital with pneumonia.

Secondly, my sleep-specialist appointment today went very well. Both the resident (?) who spent most of the time with me and the attending were very, very friendly, helpful, and informative. And the resident said that what sent me to the ER a couple weeks ago was almost certainly hyperventilation, which is a word I wish I’d heard from the staff who saw me (not docorion, in case anybody was wondering). I was aware of having trouble breathing that morning, so I was making a conscious effort to get enough air, so that makes perfect sense.

Anyway, they say that it’s pretty much guaranteed that I have obstructive sleep apnea.

The sleep center had an appointment available tonight for a sleep study, so I get to sleep with the fishes electrodes tonight. Given how bad my apnea is, the specialist I saw today said they’d probably be able to determine I had it quickly, and fit me for a CPAP machine tonight as well. Then my appointment for a follow-up isn’t until December (unless there’s a cancellation earlier), and I’m guessing that would be when I’d actually get one.

They told me that my energy level should come back right away with treatment, but the memory, learing [EDIT: and speling and typeing], cognition, and attention problems will probably take something like six months to go away, because that’s basically brain damage that has to heal once I start getting enough oxygen at night. Six months or so to get better from something that’s been getting worse over at least the better part of a decade doesn’t sound so bad, but it can’t start soon enough for me.