Pruny fingers

One of the things you don’t anticipate when undergoing a sleep study is to wake up with a pruny finger.

We’ve all experienced having pruny digits. They are most common from staying too long splashing around in a lake or pool or, less fun, from having just finished washing a mountain of dishes.

Again, it is not something you expect as a side effect of a sleep study.

I expected having a sore face from where my loving spouse used what seemed like half the roll of tape to secure the cannula from the nose-piece to my face to keep it from slipping off while I slept. I even adjusted to the weirdness of having something the size of a cellphone strapped to my chest and another box strapped a few inches above my bellybutton.

The truly unsettling part was the silicone sucker thing that went on my pointer finger to measure the amount of oxygen in my bloodstream. It was connected to a watch-like device that was recording everything with the hope that the people interpreting the results will allow me to figure out a way to actually sleep through the night without waking up gasping for air.

I have always been a loud snorer. When I was a child the remedy — along with the constant cases of tonsillitis — was to have my tonsils and adenoids removed. My siblings had undergone similar procedures with no issues, but I was the weird one who, I was told later, came out of anesthesia while still on the operating table and who ended up waking up in an oxygen tent with my tonsils still very much in place.

As my curling teammates will attest, my snoring is almost comically loud to the point where they have suggested I am somehow faking it or perhaps have captured an angry Canada goose and am keeping it under my pillow.

In the past year, things have gotten to the point where while I start out in bed, I will wake up after a short while and end up sitting in a recliner in my living room if I am to get any sleep at all. Hotel rooms are an even bigger challenge as I end up propped up in a chair trying to get some sleep but waking up worried about falling on the floor.

I was finally able to get a referral to do a sleep study last fall and had the appointment all set up. On the day I was supposed to meet with the Aspirus pulmonology folks in Wausau, I took off work early and was excited to finally be doing something to address the issue. I was about 10 minutes outside Wausau when I got the call that the doctor canceled my appointment because something had come up. They told me they would call to reschedule.

I figured that call will come about the same time I get the people from the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes ringing my doorbell.

Finally when I was getting my yearly physical and biometric screening a couple weeks ago, I told the doctor about my breathing problems. He noted that I could get a home study done here in Medford through Aspirus Hospital.

That’s how I came to be taped up, strapped in with a silicon sucker thing turning my finger pruny, but nonetheless happy that something was finally happening.

I was warned it may take a few weeks to get the results in and reviewed, but I am OK with that. I can be patient with incremental action being taken, as long as it is moving forward. Of course, my family, neighbors and woodland animals who live in the forest across the street from my house may feel differently.

For their sakes I hope that we can come up with a resolution that will finally allow me and those around me to get a good night’s sleep. Pruny fingers would be a small price to pay for that to happen.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.