Shelby Cass's Weblog

Went to see the almighty Dr. Li this week. I sat in the chair at the center of the room and zoned until he popped the door open and boomed “Shelby Cass”. He has a loud voice…I can hear him through the walls. I sat up and said “Hi.” And he busted up laughing.

huh?
He kept laughing and said “You should be a celebrity.” I was still very confused because thus far I’d only said hello. Turns out he has a few patients who read my blog and who have told him I am funny. It took about 45 seconds for that information to come out. Dr. Li was just sitting on his stool snickering while I tried to pull the information out of him. For a while he was in on his own little inside joke, having a grand old time.

So, after he got his giggles out, we talked a little about how I am feeling (which is very well) and then he got kind of pensive and serious and said, “Let me ask you something.” And he asked if I noticed a difference between sleep with the CPAP and sleep post surgery without the CPAP. NIGHT and DAY I told him. He was not surprised. He said sleep has to be more than just breathing, and I agreed it has to have something to do with comfort. When I had the CPAP machine strapped to my face, I could breathe, but I was still having struggling dreams. I don’t struggle at night any more. Not at all. Court says I don’t snore and I don’t jerk around all night like I’m being electrified.

I explained to Dr Li, “You know how sometimes in your dreams you have to pee? And you run around through your dreams looking for a toilet and hopefully you wake up before you pee in your bed?” He nodded, then realised what he had acknolwedged and busted up laughing again. But he understood what I was saying. Your external surroundings completely affect your dreams, your state of mind. You could twist up in your sheets and wake up struggling to get free…well imagine having a mask strapped to your face and a strap holding your chin shut and the very audible sound of you breathing through a humidifier. Those dreams weren’t too pleasant. Luckily they never resulted in me wetting the bed.

Homework assignment: Pry my own jaws apart. Well, not so drastic…but use slight pressure and open my jaws wider than they do to stretch those tight little muscles that are making yawning ever so painful so that I yaaaaaawwwwwn and at the very end I always SQUEAK. It’s startling to Court who jumps every time I do it, so hopefully these exercises will help. Hurrah!

On the tooth front: a few teeth have reunited on the right, but not on the left yet. No molar contact. I still swallow things whole-ish and have taken to chomping on the inside of my lower lip (not on purpose, it just jumps in there sometimes). Lips still tingly but mostly just feel dry and not sensitive to wind anymore. Someday I’ll feel everything again. Won’t that be cool?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 11:03 am and is filed under Sleep Apnea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.