I'm not all doom and gloom, I have good days too!

Something that I have noticed after following the blogs and facebook posts of people with SPS and other chronic illnesses is that their lives tend to revolve around the fact that they are sick and they focus only on the negative.
I was sick yesterday, I was sick today and yes I will be sick tomorrow. I never know from one day to the next how I will feel when I wake up in the morning or even if I will be able to fall asleep the night before.
Since the whole reason for my blog was to track the progression of my disease, the sucesses and failures of treatments and to share my general experience living with SPS there will be alot of posts about my bad days. I wanted to take a moment to share some of whats going on in the days between those bad days.
I have a wonderful little boy. He's exceptionally smart and sweet. I have an awesome Chad. He is always there for me no matter what I need. I have a great job that I enjoy and provides me with great health insurance and other benifits. My family and I go out and enjoy our lives. We go on vacations and shopping trips, we go out to eat. We go to Karate lessons and cub scout meetings, we hang out with our extended family on weekends. I have friends and we usually go out on Friday nights.
What I wish for anyone who reads this, especially anyone who is living with a chronic illness... it consumes your body, it takes away your health but don't let it take all the joy out of your life.

Sleep Study

My neuro decided that my fatigue might be caused by more than just being anemic and being on muscle relaxers. She scheduled me for a sleep study. I couldn't actually write about it while I was taking the study, I was allowed to bring my cell phone but not the lap top. So I will write about it now.

There were two things about the sleep study that I was very anxious about. I've had a sleep study before and I've spent the night in the hospital before so it wasn't either of those two things. My number one worry was - I have to remove my acrylic nails and my number two worry was - I sleep with a stuffed bunny and no one at the clinic is going to take me seriously.

On the day of the study I left work early and went home to shower. Chad and I went to get something to eat. I had to be at the clinic at 6:30, its hard for me to eat that early at night but I was still a little nervous anyway so I wasn't worried about getting hungry later. I pulled into my designated parking spot at the clinic and buzzed for the nurse to let me in. It was really nice inside, not like a hospital at all, more like a hotel. I was given a tour; two sleep study rooms, the room where the tester... ummm tested, and a break room for the people who worked in the clinic.

There was one other woman there doing a sleep study. She was on her second visit. On the second visit they fit you for a mask and calibrate your CPAP machine so it will work best for you. I don't know if I will need a second visit or not, I haven't seen my doctor since the study.

I had a nice double bed to sleep in. It wasn't a hospital bed it was more like a bed you would have at home. They took some measurements and hooked up all the little sensors and then left me to watch TV until time to go to sleep.

I didn't sleep well at all. I'm a very light sleeper and every time the tester came in to make an adjustment or reattach a sensor that fell off I woke up. In the morning she woke me up at 5 am. She said she couldn't tell me any of my results but she did say that I only went into stage 4 sleep a few times.

The day after the test I was so tired. I tried to go to work but I left at lunch time. All in all it wasn't a bad experience.