Wednesday at around 12:30 p.m., I was drinking my Diet Pepsi and I decided that I should take a look at the materials that had been mailed to me the week before.  Those "materials" had to do with my "sleep study" that would begin in eight and a half hours.  I found a set of instructions.  My hair would have to be clean, and I would have to avoid coloring it for at least three weeks before the test.  No problem with that.  I must eat normally.  I always eat normally... I don't know how else to eat!  About midway down the list of instructions, there it was: "No caffeine the day of the study."  Rut  roh.  I looked at the Pepsi.  It was half gone.  I drove to a convenience store and bought a caffeine free diet Pepsi.  As far as taste goes, that's a step down... a big step down.

I parked in the hospital's parking garage at about 8:40 p.m. and began searching for the entrance that would take me to the Sleep Lab.  I walked from one end of the garage to the other, went down an elevator, walked across an access road, went through automatic doors, took an elevated walkway over the street, went down some stairs, found myself in another parking garage and went to the end of it, walked out to the street I'd just crossed over, walked downhill down the street, found another access road, walked uphill until I found the oncology lab, walked around to another door and barely made it through before it locked for the evening, went the wrong way down the hall, got into another elevator, and ended up at the Sleep Lab.  I was sweating at that point, and tired enough to go to bed right then and there.

Alas, they were not ready to study my sleep.  Instead, they had 30 pieces of paper for me to sign.  Yes, I knew my privacy rights.  Yes, you may tell my insurance company what you're doing to me and the results of my tests.  Yes, I'm responsible for paying what the insurance company does not.  Yes, I know the names of the countries that were part of the Quadruple Alliance.  Okay, that last one wasn't really in there, but it might as well have been.

I was told to get into whatever I'd brought for pajamas (ha) and then crack the door when I was done with that.  I had to stand in front of the room's camera so that my picture could be taken.  When I was dressed for sleep, two women came in and wired me.  I was handed four long wires that I was to run down the front of my shirt, under my shorts and down to my ankles, two down the right leg and two down the left leg.  I sat in a chair, and one woman sat on the floor and began attaching the wires to my ankles while the other began attaching lots and lots of wires to my scalp.  I also had wires attached to my jaw and my chest.  She put a net "cap" over my hair.  Finally, a tube was strung over my ears and under my nose with two little plastic feelers going up my nostrils.  This was not for oxygen, but to measure my breathing.  Then, elastic straps were put around my chest and around my belly and wires were attached to those.  All of the wires (I'd guess there were 30 to 50 of them) were hooked into a box.  She let it hang down onto my chest.  I was certain that I looked something like Darth Vador.  Sorry, but there are no photographs.

I read for a while, and then, I watched television.  At 10:30, they came to tuck me in.  First, something was attached to that tube under my nose.  It hung over my lip... so they could measure breathing through my mouth as well.  A wire was taped onto the end of my index finger on my right hand (and strange as it may seem, that was the most difficult one to manage).  The box was taken off my chest, placed on the corner of the bed near my head, and attached to a master wire of some kind.  If lightening had struck the hospital, I'd have been fried from head to, uh, ankle.  The light was turned out, the video camera was turned on, and I was supposed to go to sleep.  Riiiiight.

In about an hour, I did go to sleep.  I know I did, because I dreamed that PuppyLover got out of the car and another woman got in, so I tried to remove the keys so she would not steal the car (with me in it).  But then, I woke up.  One of the nice women came to see why I wasn't sleeping.  I asked for some water and she got a little bottle for me.  I tried to sleep, but instead, my back began to hurt.  Besides, how can anyone sleep with junk attached to their face?  I sat up in bed and the woman returned to my room to ask if everything was okay.  I said it was not okay because my back was hurting.  She said, "So, you're not going to sleep anymore tonight?"  I was so tempted to say, "Not if I have to sleep here."  I said I would sleep when my back quit hurting.  She was satisfied with that.  After a long time, I was able to go back to sleep, but I kept having strange dreams that would wake me up.... I was teaching mosquitoes to play baseball, I was singing Christmas songs with my cousin (he's been dead for 11 years) in a motel room, I was at a baseball game in Mexico and the third base coach had a microphone to speak to the spectators... junk like that.

Six o'clock was the appointed time for me to be awakened.  Instead, I woke at 6:40 to the explanation that rules prohibit anyone from being awakened during REM sleep.  The wires went off easier than they went on.  I had to fill out another questionnaire (including a detailed description of all those dreams).  Finally, I got dressed and was allowed to leave.  So much for waking PuppyLover at 6:45.  So much for getting to work on time.  And I had to wash my hair!  There were huge lumps of goo in it from those wires they attached to my scalp.

The results of my study?  I apparently failed.  I have to go back again in two weeks and wear some kind of mask while I sleep.  Good grief!

I took a trip last week.  I left town Monday night at 9:00 p.m. and arrived in Atlanta, GA at 2:00 a.m.  I left Atlanta Thursday around noon and arrived in Alcoa, TN at around 4:30 p.m.  I left Alcoa Friday morning and arrived in Townsend, TN... a few minutes later.  I left Townsend Saturday evening and went home.  The purposes of this trip were: a workshop that was put on by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and a conference put on by the East Tennessee Historic Preservation Alliance.  To summarize both: preserve water and preserve your heritage.

The last day of the Historic Preservation conference included a presentation by a gentleman from North Carolina whose professional career was mostly historic preservation consultant, but who was elected to be the mayor of the small town in which he lived.  Every other presentation included PowerPoint, but not his.  Instead, he would, from time to time, show a clip from the movie version of "The Music Man."  It was a unique approach, I will give him that.  I kept thinking that he was trying to say that historic preservation was a scam perpetrated by hucksters.  It was very strange.  He even played most of that song about there being trouble in River City.

While I was in Atlanta, I ate at "Ted's Montana Grill."  After I finished my meal, the waiter informed me that I had been siting beside the owner.  I had NOT been sitting next to Ted Turner.  I confess that I did try a bison burger.  The wait staff was late with the owner's meal.  This did not go over well.

I do hope that all is well with you and yours.