I don't think I've ever felt so sure that my life was very close to being over, and it was terrifying.
Tuesday night I was scheduled to be in Madison at 8 for a sleep study to determine if I have sleep apnea or any other sleep disorders. I got off work at 6:00 to find it snowing pretty hard and was already not looking forward to what would typically be an hour to an hour and a half drive. I came to a bit of a stand-still on the 43, but once I got to the 94 things were moving pretty well...at first. Then it started snowing harder so I was driving about 35-40 mph and following in the tracks of the cars ahead of me. It was a little slippery and hard to see but otherwise ok.
That changed pretty quick somewhere around Waukesha. I had slowed down to about 35 and knew it was really slick, but all of a sudden the tracks I was following weren't there anymore. I slowed down a little more, and all of a sudden I'm spinning in a circle from the far right lane (out of 3 lanes) all the way over to the snow bank along the median wall on the left side, and then bounced off and slid all the way back to the right hand shoulder again. I ended up perpendicular on the shoulder looking out the driver side window at the traffic coming at me.
Luckily that semi was one lane over and ahead of me instead of behind me or I'm pretty sure I would not be writing this right now. On my way back to the right shoulder I narrowly missed another car - luckily it was driving faster than I was sliding. Other than that there was a lot of traffic coming towards me, but not too close. I think that when I first started sliding I made the mistake of turning the wheel too hard or the wrong way in a moment of total panic.
Once I stopped over on the shoulder I just sat there for a minute, sweating and shaking and completely terrified while completely illogical thoughts ran through my head. Some of those thoughts included "I can't believe I didn't just die." and "Oh my God Corey is going to be pissed off if his truck is all fucked up." and "If I had died The Boss would have killed me." which of course makes absolutely no sense.
Anyway, once I had collected my sanity, found my figurative balls, and thanked God for my life, I continued my drive. I am so thankful that that whole episode didn't happen somewhere there was a huge drop or cliff or ditch. It was at an exit so there was nothing but a flat spot of grass and pavement. The entire drive ended up taking 3.5 hours or so and I was an hour and a half late. When I finally got there, they tried to get to reschedule and come back another time.
There was no chance in hell I was going to do that.
I talked her into letting me stay because, after all, I almost died trying to get there, and I promised her I would fall asleep as fast as possible. I'm not sure how someone can promise something like that, but whatever - she let me stay.
It took about an hour for them to put all of the electrodes in the right places - some of them a little awkward. I think I had 9 of them glued to my scalp with some wierd paste, and then one behind each ear, one on each side of my chin, one on each temple, two on my forehead, one over my throat, and a very awkward sensor taped right under my nose. There were also 2 on my chest (along with 2 straps that went across the top and bottom of my rib cage, and 2 on each leg. Blah blah blah.
You'd think that all of those sensors would make it impossible and awkward to sleep, but with the exception of the one under my nose, I couldn't really feel them. I ended up falling asleep faster than I actually thought I would...or
ever do, for that matter. I did have a really crazy dream though. It was like a mini-series. In each segment, I was part of a sleep study and left the hospital wearing all of those crazy sensors, but knew I was supposed to still be there and in bed. The rest involved running in to random people I knew in the army (some I was friends with, some I only knew of), Whoopi Goldberg pulling out a bong and trying to get me to smoke weed with her, snow covered alligators crawling down the street, and being followed by some really creepy guy.
Annnnnnnnnyyyyyywaaaaayyyy... In the end it turns out that I don't have sleep apnea (which is good), BUT... in the entire 6 hours I spent sleeping, I only had 3 minutes of REM sleep. THREE MINUTES?!?!?! In an entire night? I don't know exactly how many minutes a person is supposed to spend in REM sleep and how many times a night they are supposed to get there, but I know it is a hell of a lot more than 3 minutes and only once in the night. No wonder I'm so freaking tired. Every. Single. Day.
It will be about 3 weeks before my doctor gets all the results of the study sent to her, and probably another three weeks (or more) until my doctor sees me and tries anything to fix this problem because that's just how the VA rolls.
