Sleeping Beauty I Am Not!

I try to be a good wife. Taking care of my husband and my boys is one of my greatest joys in life. I try to make sure that I look decent before my husband comes home from work (after all he has been surrounded by well dressed and well coiffed women at work). Even though I am not a big fan of lacy lingerie all the time, I make sure that I climb into bed freshly showered and teeth brushed even if I'm just wearing a MSU t-shirt.

However, it is hard to maintain an aire of femininity once I fall asleep and I start snoring and my teeth start grinding. No pretending there's a Sleeping Beauty with all that going on! That is why yesterday I packed up my p.j.'s and pillow and headed to St. D's for a sleep study.

First, I had to have some decent p.j.'s so the boys and I headed out to find me a pair. I found a set of Nick and Nora cherry print p.j.'s that I thought I could feel comfortable walking around in front of other people and being "watched" while I slept.

After that I spent the rest of the evening with my boys. We had supper, went to little guy's swimming lessons and just hung out. I grabbed a shower and threw stuff in my bag and about 9:15 I headed out to the hospital.

When I arrived I was escorted upstairs by security -- in case I changed my mind. My sleep technician greeted me at the door and showed me my bedroom for the night. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for all the wires and gadgets laying all over the bed which reminded me from "One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest". Images of Jack are not good before you are supposed to be sleeping!

ST (Sleep Technician) tells me to change into my pajamas and then she is going to ask me some questions. She asked me how much coffee, alcohol, food, etc... I had during the day and then she began hooking me up for sleep. I had more wires attached to me than a Dell Computer. If you had just plugged in a keyboard, I could have blogged all night. I had wires attached to my legs (to test for restless legs), to my sides, to the front of my neck, down the sides of my face, my forehead, and all over my head (and I mean all over). I had two different straps around my chest and abdomen. Two different sets of tubes stuck up my nose to test my breathing including one in front of my mouth. I had about 50 different sets of wires hanging off of me. After everything was hooked up she told me to lay down in the bed and said, "Sweet dreams!"

It was all I could do to keep from laughing until she left the room, but the again I might as well laugh in her face since she had a microphone and could hear EVERYTHING I was doing and could see me as well. Talk about feeling like a lab rat. It was the longest night of my life.

This morning about 4:15 I had to go to the restroom. I told her and she gave me the machine so I could carry it into the bathroom with me. "Don't you have enough information? Can we just unhook and let me go home?" "Oh, honey, you don't want to drive home now!" Oh, yes, I did! I just wanted to drive home, shower all the goop that she had used to attach all the electrodes to my body off of me and crawl into bed. I finally drifted back off only for her to walk in at 5:00 and say, "Good morning! Time to go home!"

I arrived home about 5:30 and crawled up on my couch. Little guy came out and snuggled up beside me.

Call Snow White and tell her that her dwarf, Sleepy, is on my couch... It is me!