Exhausted

Last night I had to pack my son in the car at his bedtime and travel to Plano for his sleep study. I have not been over preparing for this adventure because I knew it was not going to turn out anything like I planned. Wasn't that the truth.

I expected some resistance, I expected a long night but I was in no way prepared for what was about to happen.

We arrived, filled out paperwork, my son watched some TV - sort of excited at this little pleasure (staying up way past bedtime and watching the tube). Then Ronny came in. I don't know Ronny's real name but I decided that was a good name for him, he never introduced himself so I was just left to pick one.

Ronny was the polysomnogramographer. He was going to be our sleep technician all night long and he seemed to either really like his job, or be really apathetic about it. I couldn't tell, he was stoic and had zero personality. He had my son sit on the bed and he started attaching "stickers" to his body, his chest, his arms, his legs. So far, everything was going well, my son was entranced in a TV coma and didn't care what was happening to him.

Ronny hooked all the wires up to the stickers, secured them behind him and wrapped it all up. Then he started degreasing my son's head. I asked what he was doing and he said he was going to put the leads on my son's head for the EEG. I said, are you kidding? Aren't we going to wait until he's asleep? He said, no ma'am we do it now. I shrugged and said, ok...

Hell broke loose. My son did not like the wires, wax or glue being stuck in his hair and face. He ripped off each lead that Ronny attempted to put on him. Ronny calmly just did it again and again and again. After 20 minutes of this game I finally lost patience and said, this isn't working, we need a new plan! (I hate it when people repeat things that don't work, hence, why I found lab work utterly frustrating and crazy).

He said, well what do you want me to do? I said, I'm not sure but he's getting more and more upset and he will not give up, I promise you. He said, ok...then I need you to restrain him. ...sigh.

Anyone who has had to restrain their child knows how difficult this is. You do it because you know it's best for them but it kills you on the inside. I've had to restrain my son way more times than I care to remember. Namely when he was in the hospital at 4 months old getting tubes shoved up his nose and down his throat, and IV's getting poked at multiple times. But, I did what we had to do. I held him in my lap, crossed his arms across his chest and used all my might to hold my very strong 32 pound 19 month old toddler.

After 15 minutes of screaming, lips turning blue, hives, kicking, biting and all sorts of HELL, he finally told me he finished. I let my son go and ....he ripped them all off his head in less than 5 seconds. I started crying. Ronny told me we needed to start again. Again, I restrained him, he freaked out so much he was foaming at his mouth and his eyes were rolling around his head as he let out animalistic noises. I was in tears the whole time. Ronny finished, he wrapped my son's head in gauze again and right before he finished my son passed out. He was breathing normally so I wasn't worried but I'm not sure if he passed out from exhaustion or lack of oxygen.

We shut out the lights and I sighed a huge relief, ready for the sleep study to start. 15 minutes in, my son woke up with arms flailing and a horrific scream. I reinserted his pacifier and he collapsed once again. 15 minutes later, same thing...3 more times he did this and then was finally "asleep". An hour went by and I was thinking all was well. It was 1:21am and I was about to try and curl up on my couch to get a few winks. As soon as I shut my eyes, I hear my son start to dream. Moaning, fidgeting, flopping, and kicking. Then I heard it BEEP BEEP BEEP, his kicking set his pulse/ox monitor off and the beeps woke him up. He sat up and when I hit the silent button, he collapsed back down. I fixed the lead and 5 minutes later, BEEP BEEP BEEP, up again.

This went on for an hour. I finally got Ronny and told him this was bullshit and because the damn machine is in the room, my son can't sleep through it's beeping. He took the pulse/ox off and left. 10 minutes later, my son kept dreaming, he flipped and turned so much I heard snaps, I turned on my cell phone light only to discover he had wrapped himself up in his wires and pulled half of them out of the receiver box. I got Ronny again.

We tried to untangle the wires (some of which had wrapped around his neck) and my son woke up fully. He remembered the crap on his head and yanked the gauze and wires off with one swift motion. At 3am, I was in tears again. The tech told me I had to restrain him again. My son started freaking again and started to yell MAMA MAMA MAMA. I couldn't do it again.

I told Ronny no. He said I could go home if I wanted and "give up", but we don't get our money back for a "failed" test. I told him to let my son fall back to sleep and we would try to put the wires back on when he was sleeping. He said, ok.

My son finally fell back to sleep at 4:30am (in the meantime he took delight in trying to pull the wires off his legs, arms, chest, back, etc), I was completely exhausted and doing anything to get him to sleep. As soon as he would start to drift, he'd jolt awake and start to fight his body wires again. At 4:50am, Ronny reentered and tried to put the wires back on, however, he did not do this quietly. He ripped the tape off the roll, cleared his throat a few times (Ronny had a cold..awesome), he only got 2 on before my son woke back up and ripped those two off.

Ronny left and came back at 5:15am and put the pulse/ox monitor back on his toe. At 5:30am, he came back and told us the time of the test was over and we needed to go. I silently put up our stuff, and woke my NOW sleeping son and draped him over my shoulder. We left, came home and when I tried to put him in his crib he screamed out for me with complete fear. I laid with him for a while and he finally woke up for the day at 10:30am.

So...a sleepless night. A little over an hour of information (who knows if that is enough) a tired son and a check written for 700 bucks. What an awful awful night.

In a "shut up Val" note, Ronny told me that Z did well for his age because he is used to working with autistic and downs toddlers with sleep apnea. Ronny said it normally takes 3 or 4 visits before they get any data on those kids. Poor kids, poor parents.