zzzZZZzzz..Sleep Study..zzzZZZzzz

One week of Sleep Deprivation, Radiotracers, and Wires on the Cranium.

-Monday Night/Tuesday Morning-

Time moved too fast when I left the sleep lab. Choosing to keep the IVs in, rather than puncturing anew later, was a mistake. I didn't want to sleep with those monstrosities, which catch on everything and send twinges of pain the length of the limb.

Predictably, I did not want to leave home once I got there, nor did I want to sleep. I only managed 45 minutes of the mandated one-hour nap before shuffling over to the computer lab for some correspondence. This took a suprisingly long time, and before I knew it, I was heading back to the building I now associate with torture and insanity. This study only began in earnest on Sunday, and I feel as if it has blotted out everything else. Again the urge to upend the equipment and refuse any further participation is almost irresistible.

Once I get there I wonder what I'm doing here so early. Bedtime at 11:30 PM, even with the twenty minutes or so it takes to plaster the wires to my cranium, 8:00 seems an excessively early call.

But there isn't much to do tonight. The cranium wiring I've gotten used to gives way to the IV hookup with the cold drip of the FDA unapproved Fluorodeoxyglucose, connected to the punctures I'd mentioned before. To calm the sensation of jostled plastic tubing, I lie on my side in bed, with Scientist J's February issue of Rolling Stone. Curiously, he underlined passages in the Howard Dean interview.

The first underlined section: "I'm very against the legalization of drugs."

Another:

"What's happened to us is, we're whipsawed between the desire for the best price and our desire for a strong community. And sometimes a strong community means paying a little more."

Before long, a tech is at my bedside, settling me in with two frigid drips and the prospect of a long night ahead. I wake up, blinking, at 12:30 AM - shocked to find I've been sleeping, purportedly deeply, what they call levels three and four. The senior citizens in the other study couldn't do this, they tell me. No, sir.

Tech C, who has warmed up considerably, - oh lovable, redeemable human species - is impressed with my descent. "It took you a while," she says, "we started to wonder.. and then you fell fast."

This explains my surprise when I do wake up after the swift crash. Does this make me some kind of narcoleptic? The question is never posed, and by quarter-to-one I'm being wheeled to the PET scanner for another round. Nurse Flo takes me; she is every bit as friendly as Maggie, but my conversation skills are at low ebb. I feel I must look churlish, and I only hope Flo will attribute my attitude to sleep deprivation, and forgive. Tech T. is still working the PET scanner, but Tech K. is not - probably off clubbing. No one offers the radio this time, with is fine. At this time of night my choices for news are limited. When the new "headgear" is maneuvered into place my nose is squashed and my throat is parched. Still, I have no choice but to hold the uncomfortable pose for a full hour. I nearly sob with relief upon my return to the sleep lab, where Nurse Flo removes the hated IVs and Tech C, the headwires. I am free, free to return to bed to capture another few hours of sleep. The wake me at 8:00 to wander out of the lab into a morning bustle of enviable intensity.

I think this is how fasting people feel; a great priority adjustment leaving everything seemingly new and wondrous.