(Don’t worry, science fans, tomorrow I will bring you a bucket full of science new. But for today, it is time for a post adventure report. )

I ended up not sleeping a wink.

That is the summary of my grand adventure. Went there to sleep for a sleep study, could not sleep, whole thing was futile, but what the fuck, it’s over.

Details to follow.

Arriving at the Scene

Because of my habitual loathing of lateness and paranoia in general about hospitals and time, I ended up arriving at the hospital around 8 pm for my 8:30 pm appointment. This turned out not to be a big deal, which was good. Also good : the admitting nurse confessed didn’t bat an eye at my total lack of ID. I suppose that happens a lot in a hospital, and being a hospital, it is not like they are going to turn you away just because you lack ID.

Sure, the letter of the law says they should. After all, I could have been some border jumping American looking to get decent health care for a change. But they still are not going to do it.

Then I ended up getting slightly lost because the nurse said I was to go to the third floor of the North Tower of the hospital and I ended up going to the South Tower because I’m a moron. A nurse or possibly a female orderly set my straight, but she was really brusque and rude about it. She seemed very stressed out. Heck, maybe she was just a particularly bossy patient. I don’t know. Her clothing matched.

While going from one end of the hospital to the other, I passed a hospital security guard who was chatting with a couple. As I passed, he said “Guess who’s birthday it is today?”

The girl of the couple said, “Yours?”
The security guard (he was quite young) nodded shyly. “Uh huh!”
The girl and her boyfriend said “Happy Birthday!”

This was at the exact moment I was passing, so I too said “Yeah, Happy Birthday!”

All three of them found that funny. And it must of been pretty funny, honestly. Some randomly passing fat bearded guy wishes the security guard a Happy Birthday in perfect timing with their conversation. It’s like something out of a sitcom or a wacky movie.

And I feel really good about that. I created a Moment for those people, something they will remember for a long time as a source of unexpected, almost magical delight. That makes me feel so damned good. I wish I could do that all the time.

Eventually, I found the Sleep Lab.

Glue and Wires

So then I arrive at the Sleep Lab, and am greeted by a very sweet and perky girl with a Latin American accent of some sort (maybe Mexican, maybe Central American) whose name I have completely forgotten (for shame!) and so I will call her Carla, because she reminded me of one of our favorite waitresses at Denny’s, who has now moved on to a better job.

She admits me, and then begins a rather lengthy process of attaching various electrodes and other sensors all over my body, including so many on my shaggy head that it was like I was wearing a skull cap made of paper and wires and glue.

And when I say glue, I mean lots of glue. She wanted to make sure she did not have to wake me up later because one of the sensors came unplugged. So she used big globs of the stuff for each electrode and whatnot.

Now don’t panic, this isn’t crazy glue or anything, it’s nice benign and easy to live with medical paste. It’s non toxic and water soluble. It is, in fact, only slightly different from those Uhu Sticks we all used in elementary school.

Still, it made me sticky, and I haaaaate being sticky. To me, stickiness is like harsh, grating static on my over sensitive sense of touch. Luckily, I did not feel the stickiness while the electrodes were on, and as soon as I got home, a hot shower melted the stuff right off me.

Why Am I Here Again?

Oh right, to sleep! Well, that never happened. I spent eight hours trying to sleep. But I just could not get there.

Why? Various factors. My hospital bed was really firm. It felt like a stone slab wrapped in Kleenex. There was a lot of noise from the rest of the lab. One of the nurses, not Carla but the other one, just could not seem to stop talking. Plus there was this weird device in the ceiling, sort of like a smoke detector, with two green lights on it that flashed at random intervals. Very distracting. Plus it was sort of cold in there. Not cold enough for me to feel cold, but cold enough to make it harder to go to sleep. I have trouble sleeping when it’s cold.

But there is also the bad place in my sleep cycle. I had a big bad sleepy day recently, and usually after that, I have a period of not being sleepy for a while. Hypersomnia to hyposomnia and back again, over and over again, fun

The Long Trip Home

Then to top it all off, I had the Bus Taker’s Nightmare when I went to take the bus, when the bus you want pulls away RIGHT as you get there. So I sit down to read and wait the for the next one. It’s bitterly cold and dark out.

Luckily, just as I finish the chapter of the book I am reading, my bus arrives…. and does not even slow down, let alone actually stop for me. I scream obscenities after it, and so now I have to stand at the pole marking the stop to make sure the next bus stops for me, meaning I can’t read and have nothing to do but stand there and dwell on how cold and miserable I am.

Then when I get on, the bus driver hassles me for not having the change out and ready in my hand already. Fuck you pal, in order to have it out already I would have to have taken off my gloves then held metal change in a bare hand until your sorry ass showed up.

And all to save you five seconds of time. Fuck that, fuck you, and fuck the fucking bus.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to get some decent sleep.