Wishing, hoping and praying along the process.
As if all the arrhythmia issues aren't enough, the results from my sleep study provided data indicating that I have sleep apnea too.
My consultation yesterday yielded interesting info on the relationship between the two. It seems obvious to me that a brain and body shutting down from a regular oxygen supply 52 times every hour, might in turn affect the rate with which the heart regulates the work it has to do. As in the number of beats. What a killer double whammy! Oh, and then there is the data indicating what they call the 'arousal percentage', meaning the number of times I wake during the night as a result of some type of arousal. According to the study this took place almost 600 times the night I was at Harborview. Either we get this fixed or I find an insomniac girlfriend.
All this might also have a dramatic impact on both my ability to recover and metabolic operating capabilities. It could very well be the reason why sometimes I feel on the doorstep of syncope, the threshold of exhaustion and the stoop of hallucination. You work out, adding requisite intensity, fuel the activity and then retire for rest and recovery, which never happens. NO WONDER!
They prescribed a treatment known as CPAP, continuous airway pressure therapy, meaning I am now the owner/renter of a machine that regulates every breath I take at night, adding the necessary air flow and pressure to create a cleaner, more effective and consistent night of sleep. It is a fairly high-tech device, with 8GB of memory tracking percentages of air flow, sleep interruptions, and rating the overall effectiveness, creating a nightly file of minutes spent in the four sleep zones. It is a moderately invasive nostril only apparatus that forces diaphragmatic breathing. Tonight will be the virgin test.
I am trusting that by this time tomorrow I will be sleeping regularly, recovering faster, staying in sinus rhythm and ready to start training with more intensity, frequency and duration.
If not I guess I can always go back to counting sheep. Or back to the drawing board as we used to say.
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