Motivational Mondays (March 30)

Usually, physically feeling well is helps you stay motivated. If you feel up for a run or a walk or any sort of workout, it makes it easier to lace up your shoes, throw on your workout clothes and get to the track or gym or wherever.

But sometimes, the prospect of feeling well is motivating enough. Say you have a cold and you're almost recovered from it, or you're a day away from taking off a cast, or any sort of similar situation, it can be motivating.

Finally, I'm going to feel better.

I have that latter sense of impending relief coming shortly. Tonight I will spend the night not at home but rather at a sleep clinic right here in Riverside. I'm getting a sleep study done and I couldn't be more....

What's the word? Happy? Well, that's not really it. Yes I'm happy that I'm getting it done but I associate feeling happy about something with an outing like Disneyland or the movies or something.

So what then? Excited? No, definitely not the right word. I get excited about vacations, not sleep studies.

Relieved? There is an element of that. I feel relieved that I'm getting it done because I feel it's been a year overdue and I'm going to be able to figure out where my body stands now with my sleep apnea... or rather my severe obstructive sleep apnea.

I guess motivated is the best word after all. I'm motivated to tackle this challenge of re-introducing myself to the CPAP, of seeing the kinds of changes my body has undergone on yet another level, of re-familiarizing myself to another aspect of my body. I know my body pretty well, know the patterns and rhythms it goes through when I work out, for instance, know how I can handle (or not handle) foods and alcohol and sweets and the like.

But for the last year, I don't really know my sleep patterns and the effect sleep has or doesn't have on my body. I can sleep for seven straight hours and not feel rested, as was the case last night. I've been using my CPAP again with regularity since getting my new mask except for last night. I wasn't tired, or so I thought, when we went to bed and was laying down in the dark. I meant to put my mask on but was just laying there, thinking. And the next thing I know, it's 3:30 in the morning, way too late to put my mask on. An hour later, I woke up again but this time I felt wide awake, a few seconds after opening my eyes.

So I know in a sense that if I don't use my CPAP I'll be tired and sluggish early in the morning. But I used my CPAP on Friday night and I was quite tired on Saturday.

I do hope that the sleep study will reveal something about my body, about my OSA (obstructive sleep apnea). The sleep study itself is an interesting experience. I had wires hooked up to me on my chest, my back, my forehead, the top of my head.... I felt like a genuine test subject, probably because I was. But the readings it took were very accurate. It was difficult to fall asleep at first because there was no television, and the test administrators can watch you through closed-circuit television so I couldn't exactly act like I would at home... not that I'd engage in anything embarrassing or anything like that, but still, I had an audience.

But ultimately that's irrelevant. What matters most is the chance to figure out this OSA and how my body reacts to it now as opposed to before.

And I feel a bit motivated that I went to the doctor's and had this taken care of. It seems easy enough but last year I never took this step I'm taking now; in fact, my last visit to the pulmonologist was in 2007. I'm excited now to take this next step in my ongoing quest for better health. And that's a great way to start any week.