October 2006 Archives

Oy. My relationship to sleep has really changed in the last six months, which, given that I have a 5 month-old, shouldn't come as a surprise. But Adèle is actually really quite good (although latterly the teething has been waking us all up). The reality is that I'm battling with a weird insomnia thing, where I fall asleep for half an hour when I go to bed, then jolt awake and sleep restlessly -- or not at all -- for the next few hours. I've been trying to figure out if it's related to my chest condition, insofar as my chest can be occasionally uncomfortable at night, but I really think it's anxiety-related. I get into this waking dream state, called "parasomnia" where it's almost like hallucinating. I've been a sleepwalker for long enough in my life that part of my brain now kind of "observes" what's going on with my sleeping mind, so it can be pretty freaky as part of my brain starts to believe that the ficus tree in our room has become a large bird etc. and the other part goes "Woah, what is THIS about?"

Even the most rudimentary research into this says "Cut back on coffee and alcohol, try and establish a relaxing routine before bed, only use your bed for sleep, etc." But geez, even my favourite form of pre-bed relaxation -- playing guitar -- isn't working, as I often can't get the songs out of my head. So what to do? The coffee and (in my case) beer thing is an obvious fix, or relatively easy, insofar as I just need to stop with the coffee after noon, and go easy on the days I do drink to ensure that I'm clearing the system before bed.

What's oddest about all this is, that although my days are very hectic and can be stressful, I don't feel totally wired or unable to handle it consciously. It's just at night when the conscious mind needs to sleep that the anxiety starts. This is one of the weirder things about aging: you can fool your conscious mind into thinking it's all under control, but your body refuses to go along with the game. The gap between the two can be surprisingly wide...

So for those of you who have been following this closely (um, like say, me. That's one.), I've been trying to figure out the source of an uncomfortable chest wheeze I've had for about the past year. There have been all sorts of things tried (see this link for background), but the last while has been the most fun. I finally saw my respirologist, and after a bronchoscopy (now THAT was fun), and the official pronouncement was, "You are a medical curiosity." Apparently my lungs are nice and clear, and he can't see any reason for this wheeze -- which is, as he said, "Startling".

He says he has no reason to believe it's asthma, especially as the tests for that came back essentially negative, and thus, there's nothing to be done at this point except monitor it and make sure it doesn't get worse. So here's the whole gamut of the past 9 months:

Prescriptions:
Symbicort
Flonase
Advair
and recently, Singlair

Tests
X-Ray
CT Scan
Allergy testing
Spirometry test
Peak expiratory flow (PEF)
Methacholine challenge
Bronchoscopy

Amazing eh? I think that pretty much compensates for four decades of relatively light use of the public health care system. Not sure what is next now, except... keep going. In my own curious way.