The Sleepies

We are officially a house full of sleep-deprived zombies.

At least that's the word from the sleep doc.

In January we took Abbie in to see a sleep disorder doctor. Why?

Her teacher told me she fell asleep on the way home from a field trip (how does anyone do that with a bus full of 2nd graders?), she's actually done that twice. And within about 5 minutes she's usually out cold whenever we go anywhere in the car (and I mean out cold, music could be blaring she doesn't hear it, and I mean anywhere, even to the grocery store). Add to this that we know she's up here and there through the night, is constantly exhausted and hard to rouse. We've seen a big swing change in her personality over the past year or so, she does well in school, but crashes the minute she walks through the door.

So off to the doctor we went.

She asked us questions like, are we consistent with bedtime? Yes, except on vacation! Otherwise it's 8 p.m., maybe 8:30 on the weekends (let me tell you we don't have a choice unless we want grumpy children, these kids never sleep in!).

Does she move around a lot in her sleep? Well, that depends on what your definition of is, is. You see Kiersten is a bed thrasher, arms and legs fly everywhere all night, and Abbie, well, she may move around a lot but not like Kiersten.

Does she sleepwalk? No, but Kiersten does, usually 4-5 times a week.

You get the idea. She checked Ab's throat, her tonsils were so small that the doc could barely see them. Since Abs has relatives with sleep apnea, she recommended a sleep study. More on this later.

Then she recommended we bring Kiersten in! We hadn't even thought about it, although Kierst can be pretty lethargic too, and constantly seems to have evening headaches.

We brought Kierst in and after talking with her she ordered blood work to check her iron levels, I guess low iron levels can contribute to restless leg problems, a good place to start. Then she told me that I need to see an adult sleep doc! Haha! A little revelation, but really not a surprise, I'm a terrible sleeper, always have been, and am always exhausted, restless leg? You know it!

Kierst's pheratin levels were low, she's now taking iron which has cut down her sleep walking to maybe once a week, her focus has improved, and her headaches seem to be gone! Hooray!

Abbie's appointment for a sleep study was scheduled for May, but thanks to a cancellation we were able to get her in Monday night. It took an hour for them to hook her up to all the wires and machines, I wanted to get a picture but there was no way she would have that!

(Side note here: Chris was on call Mon. night--we were so desperate to get the study done that we decided to chance him having to go in, usually it's only about 1 in 5 calls that he actually has to go the hospital. Haha! He got called in right after I took Abs to the hospital, took Lisi and Kierst with him, they watched a movie while he attended to the "this will only take 30 minutes" procedure. That led to a delivery, which led to other things, 3 hours later the girls were still watching movies in the waiting room, they didn't get home until 10 p.m. Of course he got called throughout the night but didn't have to go in. I was worried that he would get called in right before school, I knew Abs and I wouldn't be home until late, and someone needed to get everyone ready. Wouldn't you know that he got called in at 5:30 a.m.? Fortunately my sis was here and Chris got home by 7:30 to get everyone off. Whew. Talk about sleep deprived :)

Anyway..they did order labwork right after the study to check Abbie's iron levels. Turns out Abbie's legs were moving all night!

No surprise there, (at least if you know Abbie), and apparently the rest of our family!!

I guess each sleep study generates about 1,300 pages of data that have to be interpreted, things like carbon dioxide and oxygen flow, dreaming, heart rate, etc., that are measured every 30 seconds. We won't have the results for another 2-4 weeks, so it will be a while until we know exactly what's going on.

So hopefully in a couple of months we'll all be sleeping better! All of us, that is, except for Chris. Nothing he can do about call!