First the back story.

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not too far way, somebody with sleep apnea came out of surgery with too much anesthesia, went home and died. Understandably, the family sued everybody. Not to speak ill of the unknown dead, but we learned some time ago to have the anesthesiologist temper the anesthesia to “just enough” rather than a “ten-count knockout”. Recovery is much faster.

But……….[Hospital Name Deleted] Hospital now has a new policy………no surgery until you are sleep-study-certified. If you’re cleared, fine. If not, you get to buy a fancy $1500 face fan that you bring with you to surgery. Yet another instance of preventive medicine. Preventive not in the sense of preventing illness……….preventive in the sense of preventing lawsuits.

This little bit of preventive medicine starts with $2500 per night stay at the [Hospital Name Deleted] Sleep Disorders Clinic Hilton. 4 rooms…….$10 Grand per night gross……..you do the math.

So last week I went to the doc for my preop appointment (it’s time again to replace the stents in my whicherdoodles.) And he springs the new requirement on me.

Gosh……… isn’t it ironic…………..[Hospital Name Deleted] won’t let me enter Operating Room B without first going through Sleep Clinic Room C.

Back to Friday.

I check in to the Sleep Clinic at 9:00 PM. That sucks on several levels. First, since my hospice time, I’ve never slept anywhere but my bedroom. Second, Friday was the season premiere of Monk. Lastly, no remote control for the tv. For $2500 a night, you’d think there’d be a remote. I admit to having an attitude at bedtime.

First they pasted 28 nodes on me that attached to 28 wires that wrapped around me like a 28 lassos. I had to be asleep by 11:00 PM so they can get two hours of readings by 3:00 AM. Then, at 3, they came in to fit me for that fancy face fan – called a CPAP. (That spelling is off by one letter.) And they need two hours of sleep to get new readings.

One by one they tried to fit me with masks that covered my whole face, partial face and nose only. Some of them had “pillows” that stuck up into my nose. They all were fastened to my head with head harnesses. And the masks were attached to the compressor on the bed stand.

After only a few minutes with each mask………….in a dark strange room with my head harnessed to a portable wind tunnel…………..I freaked.

Turns out I have claustrophobia. I always knew I had it on the macro level. Like going down into Hoover dam and such. But I always figured those feelings were the feelings of a normal, safety concious person. But this was claustrophobia on the micro level. I wasn’t about to have my face covered by any kind of mask. No way. No how.

They finally found a small nose cover that I could tolerate and I fell asleeep. But that’s not good enough. After a while they have to test to see just how much of a galestrom they can blow up my nose. They got it to the point that the plastic in the mask began to vibrate. There’s no way I can adequately describe that feeling in an email. It of course woke me up.

Finally, at 6:00 AM, it was over. But before I could go, I had to fill out a bunch of paper work. My doc had put a rush on the testing (he’s the Chief of Staff at [Hospital Name Deleted) so they put me through the rigors BEFORE I filled out the paper work. Turns out that most of the paper work is a personality inventory. Clearly, from the questions they asked, and the experience I'd just had, they were making sure that their patients wouldn't wake up and try to kill the tech.

Now we have to purchase a CPAP. We opted out of [Hospital Name Deleted]‘s generous offer to sell us one for $1500. Online medical supply stores sell them much cheaper.

So that’s it folks. That’s how I spent my summer vacation by experience being buried alive.

Hope your summer turns out better.