Sleep

Sleep is a wonderful thing.  I finally got some of it and feel refreshed.  It took awhile, though.

I finally managed to get to sleep somewhere around 3:30 yesterday morning, and was wide awake at 5, which gave me a whopping total hours of sleep for two days somewhere between 3 and 4.  I remember, with some wry humor, my friend Gilbert's perennial sleep problems and how every time I saw him I first heard a recitation of how much (or more likely how little) sleep he had the night before.

But I had a doctor's appointment to get to and decided to talk with her about it. 

It was kind of cool, driving to Kaiser, because I came across the famous Davis wild turkeys, grazing in a church yard.  

We never heard much about wild turkeys until the cemetery decided to ban dogs from the property in the back of the grave area, which used to be a dog run.   Apparently the dogs had kept the wild turkeys out, but after the dogs were no longer allowed, the turkeys began to multiply and now you see them all over town.  A couple of years ago, Walt saw them on our roof.  I know they can be a big nuisance, but it's kind of fun to come across them unexpectedly.

It was a good appointment with my doctor.  Most of my appointments are to have her scold me for my bad test results, but this time almost all of them were good.  My numbers are finally getting where they are supposed to be and even my weight is down 60 lbs.  My pulse was higher than it had been the previous two visits last week, so she ordered an EKG, but on the EKG, the pulse was just fine.

The EKG is kind of silly.  They have you disrobe and give you a gown to put on, but since the nurse has to attach leads all over your chest, the only thing the gown actually covers is your back (which you are lying on) and your shoulders.  I laughed about it with the nurse and she said that the gown was mainly so you could cover up while waiting for someone to come in and do the test.

I had worn my matryushka doll socks...

...which the nurse liked.  She has a couple of matryushka dolls and we talked about them, about the store that used to sell them in Old Sacramento, and about all the dolls I saw when we were in Russia.  Something to pass the time while a machine is measuring your heart rate.

I talked with the doctor about my insomnia of the past two days and, very strangely, she ordered a sleep study.  I told her my problem was not that I couldn't stay asleep, but that I couldn't get to sleep, but she decided to have me checked for sleep apnea.  I think it's very likely that I have sleep apnea, but I doubt that logistically I can use a c-Pap machine even if I do, what with where and how I sleep, but I will do the sleep study, which requires my picking up a testing machine in Sacramento, doing the test overnight, and returning the machine the next morning by 7 a.m., which seems kind of silly, given that it's a 20-30 minute drive from here, and why does it have to be returned so early.  But owell.

I got back home again around 10:15 and had a date to meet a friend for lunch at 11:45.  I tried to nap for half an hour, but couldn't get to sleep, probably because I was so aware that I had to be up again so soon.

Lunch was very nice.  There is a new Panera in town that we wanted to try and we both decided this is our new 'place," since the Chinese buffet is now closed.  And we had a nice chat, but every single molecule in my body was screaming that I wanted to get out of there and go to sleep!  

We finally said good bye, I drove home and went from the front door to the couch and, finally...finally, went to sleep.  I slept about 2-1/2 hours and Walt said that I even slept through a volley of dog barks.  I woke up feeling like a new person and when nighttime came went right to sleep and slept my usual 6 hours, so I hope I'm finally back on track again.