I met with the Sleep Medicine doctor today thinking he's going to say "you have sleep apnea and you will need to start using a CPAP machine". After filling out another 3 page questionnaire on sleep habits and related stuff, the doctor examined me and asked a few questions. One being what do I think is a part of the problem. BAM - I got to tell him I always thought it was that I have trouble breathing through my nose because it seems to be blocked or partially blocked all the time. I can do a sinus rinse and it might feel good for a minute but then back to feeling partially blocked. So, he looked and a few minutes later told me the rinses won't help. You have a deviated septum. The left side of the nose is partially blocked. He told me he thought I had obstructive sleep apnea and wanted to setup an overnight at the clinic and asked me if I agree with his assessment. I told him I did but...

I hate the buts, but I'm more concerned with my knee getting fixed than I am about the sleep apnea. Then the good doc that he was brought my thinking back into line with reality. If you have to have surgery on the knee, the surgeon will look at the sleep apnea and want to know it's not going to effect the outcome of the surgery. He wouldn't want a patient gasping for air coming out of surgery. So I put on my happy face and said lets do the official sleep apnea overnight test and that way they look at your brain waves, heart, breathing and record a video of your sleep so they can compare the timeline and know what's happening when you are doing all the wiggling in bed (or some words to that effect ☺). So, next Sunday night at 6:30 pm I have to report to Mayo for the overnight and then meet with the doctor again Monday morning. So I hope to have it all out of the way in preparation for my consultation appointment in Orthopedics with the knee specialist on August 9th.

One thing really nice about my appointment today was the Sleep Medicine folks have their act together. After my appointment was setup, they took me over to the area where you will be staying for the test and you watch a 10 minute video of the test that used an actor for a patient. After the video they brought in a CPAP mask that fits over the nose and we did a trial run to see how it works. Let me say I was a little apprehensive but the technologist explained the goal of the test and if one mask didn't work they have 2 others they can try. I'm kind of worried that if you use the small one that just covers the nose you have to keep your mouth closed. My thoughts...fat chance. I guess I will find out Sunday night ☺. I was put at ease by the thorough explanation given to me by the tech so Kudos to Mayo Clinic. Will let you know next week how it went!