Sleeping, Shopping and Straight Talking

I hadn't intended to be away from the computer all day yesterday, but with a doctor's appointment in the morning, another in the afternoon, and some racing around in between, well you know how it is.

I saw the sleep disorders specialist in the morning. He operates out of a place with the cool title of The Brain Research Institute. Sadly it's no Hammer Horror-esque 'art deco' observatory building, set high on a barren moonlit hill, but you can't have everything. He was nice, even though he did give me a major punch to the solar plexus when he delivered the salient point that I'm "a middle aged man who's a bit overweight". Ouch (bitch!). His initial diagnosis is likely long-term primary insomnia, made worse more recently by possible sleep apnea. On May 12th I get an overnight stay in hospital for a sleep study, where they hook up with electrodes and observe you sleeping.

I'm just going to pretend I'm on Big Brother, but with electrodes.

The hospital literature stresses that you have to follow your normal routine, so bring in books etc if you normally read before bed, and if you normally have alcohol before going to bed to arrange with the hospital to bring in alcohol. Alcohol and hidden cameras, see really the only difference is the electrodes.

I wonder if I'll have to do some lame-ass challenge as well?

I had some time to kill before going to see my regular doctor in the afternoon to talk about the sleep stuff and get the results of my liver ultrasound, so I headed into the city to go and get my refund from the $250 I paid for the sleep specialist in the morning. I'll skip over the half hour waiting in line, and cut to the good bit where I get $130 back from Medicare. Yay!

So of course I went to Kinokuniya and bought a couple of Japanese knitting books with some of the procceds. I mean, it's not everyday someone hands you $130! Even if it is your own money!

Then I went into Tapestry Craft (where Web-Goddess worked until very recently) to check out the yarns. I'd only been in there a couple of minutes when the nice young lady behind the counter (Hi Becca!) asked me "Excuse me, do you have a blog? Are you The Other?..." Ha, fun! I am so rock star.

So then I went and saw my regular doc in the afternoon, who agreed with me that 43 is not "middle aged" (exactly, thank you!). Everything is all good except I need to make some diet and lifestyle changes, and be more diligent about taking my cholesterol meds and maybe change meds in the future, because my liver is enlarged and has "fatty deposits". Ewww. Anyway, let's not dwell on "fatty deposits", I'm still dealing with "middle aged".

So there you have it, the minutae of my day. I felt good about all the medical stuff, the sleep study thing should be an interesting experience and hopefully will lead to a resolution, my doc looked at all my blood results over the past 3 years and showed me that all the badness has been steadily trending downwards. Yay me! Oh, and my doctor's receptionist (Who we like very much, and not just because she wears an "Ab Fab" t-shirt with Patsy & Edina on it.) didn't charge me for the appointment. Score.