I was surprised there was not one drop of blood on the nose bandage this morning. I did not put it back on today, and have only needed a few kleenex tissues. It's been hard to follow the doc's instructions and not blow my nose. I was a bit congested this morning, spitting up a fair amount of snotty discharge. By the afternoon, the spittle was relatively clear, and my sinuses are more open than I ever remember. It seems very strange to be able to breathe through my nose with my mouth closed. It's almost scary. My nostrils are really sore today. I can tell something pretty large was shoved up in there. I plan to put the bandage back on tonight, mostly because I am afraid to have the CPAP pressure lowing through it so soon after the surgery.
The second thing I did this morning was to download my card to ResScan. I was absolutely amazed that my AHI was only 3.3 last night. I'm back to thinking my leak problem is from flopping around in the bed. I remember waking around 2:15 am to a massive leak with the mask shoved way over on my face. I fixed it and went right back to sleep. (I woke again about an hour later to use the restroom.)
Instead of printing out the reports, I took the laptop in this time. The sleep doc got a little pissed that I have been experimenting with my pressure and EPR. I told him he would insist that a diabetic patient would take control of his disease, so why not an OSA patient? He said it's just not normal, and I kind went off at him. All the doctor visits and tests I have had over the last 9 months are driven by two things. It started with the discomfort I have in my esophagus. I know what causes that, and I am waiting on an appointment with a surgeon. It quickly became about my lack of energy and mental clarity. I used to be able to function at a fairly high level all day long. I want that back. I told him I would like his help, but I will continue to experiment until my AHI is under 1.0 every night.
After that we had a pretty good conversation about the Oxygen. He reviewed my sleep study and looked over my lung function test again. I told him since I saw him last I wore a heart monitor for a couple of weeks and the heart doc cleared me. So how could I have such a crappy night on CPAP after my surgery, but feel so great all day long the next day? He told me I might need supplemental O2 along with CPAP, and none of those tests prove I don't it. So I am scheduled for another sleep study on Aug 15th.
By the way, it's almost 9 pm as I type this. Normally I would have been out of energy before 4 pm. I am going to leave the O2 hooked-up to the CPAP machine again tonight. (And I can hardly wait to try the O2 with the Swift FX mask.)
Here's a screen shot of last night:
