The Wide Awake Study

If you find that you are sleeping too soundly and constantly wake up feeling refreshed, and are looking to change that, I have a solution for you. I highly recommend living with a child with a heart condition who has to wear an oxygen monitor at night. When Audrey’s oxygen levels drop too low during the night, the monitor’s alarm goes off, and there is no way to sleep through that. Between the obnoxious siren and knowledge of the potential condition that the monitor is designed to measure, it is impossible to sleep through it. Audrey sets off the alarm a couple of times a week. Fortunately, her oxygen levels have never been an issue with her heart. Audrey has sleep apnea.

So, this week Audrey had to undergo her third sleep study. The first two sleep studies measured and confirmed the extent of her apnea. This most recent study was intended to measure the effectiveness of putting Audrey on an oxygen and a CPAP machine. Outside of feeling cool because you look like Bane from “The Dark Knight Rises, ” there isn’t much to enjoy about wearing a CPAP. Surprisingly, Audrey did not try to rip it off as soon as they put it on her. She is the best-natured kid on the planet and takes just about everything in stride without complaining, but she is over having things attached to her face. That is just about the only thing that can make her fuss, and I can’t blame her.

We could not tell if the CPAP machine worked because from the minute they put it on her until four hours later when they removed it, Audrey stayed wide awake. She made sure Daddy stayed awake, too. In typical Audrey fashion, she didn’t complain; she just giggled and talked in her Audrey-gibberish language for most of the night. So, the medical team downshifted to straight oxygen after that. We got better results in that she slept for a good five minutes in the few hours that she was on oxygen.

I’m not sure they got any good information from the sleep study, seeing how they were trying to measure her oxygen levels while she slept, and sleeping is the one thing she did not do. They should’ve named it “How many Sudoku Puzzles Can Daddy Finish While Pulling an All-Nighter?” Study. We have plenty of data on that.

So, it was a rough night for Audrey. I don’t know what was the sadder sight for me, seeing my little girl wearing a CPAP mask or seeing her sweet little head lying on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich because she was so exhausted that she fell asleep eating lunch the next day.