kingvenevong-blog

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Accepting best friend applications lol

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Puppy spam

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Sleep Apnea

Oof, I recently found out I have mild sleep apnea lol.

Turns out the first study wasn’t accurate and the second is accurate and now I have to have a CPAP machine.

Also gonna try therapy because why not i wanna die :)

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There was a guy that got beat up and had a black eye at school that I helped out because I found out he was homeless. Turns out he has been arrested several times and I found one of his mugshots. BTW he wasn't grateful for me at all for helping him when he had no ride or home to go to in 40 below weather and he wanted to walk to downtown from Chemeketa in an active blizzard.

Anyways he lives in Portland, OR now and evades prison cuz u know privilege. How does a guy who sells illegal drugs and get in public fights not stay in jail ugh. Karma doesn’t exist yo.

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Official sleep study for narcolepsy

this is probably a horrible way to introduce myself lol but I decided to start blogging about it lmao. 

Anyways, after finally getting free community health insurance, my family was finally able to afford for me to go to the primary doctor for serious issues (i don’t work :/ ) which at first was awkward and a bit frustrating but she actually took me seriously and referred for my insurance to a pulmonary sleep doctor for sleep apnea and narcolepsy. Honestly, if I wasn’t fat she wouldn’t have bothered to measure my neck and care about sleep apnea, even if it was on the checklist they have you fill out. (Basically, if your neck is over 6 inches in circumference then you are most likely to have sleep apnea or if you weigh a lot) It was only an awkward visit because she speaks into her phone so it writes into the computer, and i tried talking about depression and she just points out a lot of image issues i had. Which is embarassing but I understand why. It was weird when she said “patient seems happy and easy going” like wow ok do i have to seem sad? cuz i can? its just its common courtesy and good manners whipped into me by my parents to seem polite and pleasant. 

So I finally get my first sleep appointment and it was an awful experience because of how i sleep lol. So at first, i tried to recline the bed extremely high at the top because i like to keep my head elevated or else i get an extremely bad headache. Next, i tried putting a pillow under my knees for proper position so i have a good sleep during the study as you need 5 hours. Well that epically failed because the pillow was so airy and puffy i couldn’t sleep comfortably lol. So the whole night i just kept changing positions as i always do but more than usual because i was not comfy. i eventually just got rid of that posture pillow idea lol and when i reclined the bed with the pillow under me there was no more room at the bottom lmao i was like bruh wtf this is difficult. So my sleep tech kept coming in my room at night because my finger sensor kept coming off, as i like to sleep with my arm under the pillow or against my face lol. And it was awful everytime she came in because of the blaring light from the main room. It hurt so bad lol, gave me a bad headache, had my eyes flashing and burning, all because this damn finger sensor wouldn’t stay on and work. It was also extremely hard to sleep with all the wires because the wires are short so you can only sleep on one side of the bed although it is a full-size bed. or else the wire or pad would come off. a few times a night she had to reapply some pads cuz they wouldn’t stick on my skin and kept falling off probably because i was moving too much. then in the morning my mom picks me up and gets me donut from the old bakery we used to own so that was nice and i got some apple juice (i love apple juice) and then after that i slept a lot more at home because i’m a piece of shit lmao.

So a few months after that i get a follow up appointment and they showed me my brain scans and breathing and everything they conducted. it was hilarious because it showed that i kept moving and kept sleeping on and off constantly. But it also made so much sense because i did feel it and was fascinating to actually see when i was awake and wasn’t becuase its so hard to telll when i’m sleeping or awake at night and i constantly get up to go to the bathroom so everything is a horrible haze. The doc then said around 5am my body finally just gave up and went into rem sleep which makes sense cuz thats when i usually feel a deep sleep before i get wide awake for a few hours. 

So in this picture is my second sleep study. The first one was to test for sleep apnea, which oddly luckily i don’t have? even though sometimes i wake up choking in my sleep and gasping for air. In my 2nd sleep study its all the same wires but somewhat felt more for some reason. and i did sleep good. 6 hours actually. way better than last time. of course its still on and off but i slept decent. and my sleep tech actually visited me more often than last time cuz the pads kept coming off and i stayed way more still and closer this time. i mean my finger sensor didn’t come off cuz she told me where its supposed to be and tied something around it lmao. next morning the AM sleep tech said she used a whole tub of paste cuz it kept coming off lmaoooo. we don’t know why but it was porbably because it was sticking to my heair instead but i think its cuz i was sweating so much. they even turn the fan on. which was soooo nice. i wish that happened everynight. where i get too hot and want a fan on lol. anyways narcolepsy sleep studies go over into the next day. my pm sleep tech said i would leave around 3 or 4pm. how it works is that they make you sleep 20 mins for every 2 hours. They check how fast you fall asleep. So i did just that and i kept dozing off the first 2 hours, and finally slept so fast for the 20 mins and woke up on time when he went to wake me up lol. then i had to wait the other 2 hours but i kept dozing off. eventually an hour in my sleep tech said that the doctor had enough data for me to leave. which was awesome because idk how longer i could do that i felt horrible haha. then had my mom pick me up and she got us some dutch but i barely drank mine to let it cool down and she just threw all of it away :( 

so now i am waiting for my final results and i hope to finally get treatment for narcolepsy lol. 

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Me: I have narcolepsy.

Dude I worked with that day: Oh! I have narcolepsy too! *obnoxiously pretends to pass out*

Me: *internally, looking at camera a la The Office*

No, really though, this is why we need better education and awareness about chronic/invisible illnesses and the fact that they are legitimate disabilities. This is why I do what I do.

I didn’t have the energy that day to try to make him aware of how, erm… not so sensitive it is to make fun of a serious, debilitating illness to someone’s face when they were just brave enough to tell you they have it (would you do that to someone with epilepsy, especially considering epilepsy and narcolepsy are kinda considered brain illness cousins? according to my docs and everything I’ve researched the past several years since my diagnosis).

But I was in a good mood still so I just laughed, lightly tapped his knee to get his attention, and said, “Oh, stop that. Actually, it’s a huge misconception and a bit of a stereotype, the idea that all narcoleptics just fall asleep randomly and that’s all the disorder is. It’s a legitimate neurological illness and unfortunately narcoleptics are at a higher risk for suicide because of how hard it is to live with. I mean, can you imagine if your brain lacked the tools necessary to get restorative, regenerative sleep, and it messed up the rest of your body and life as a result?”

I spent some time explaining to him the different kinds of narcolepsy and what my specific symptoms are, and how because of this lack of awareness I lived with the more intense symptoms undiagnosed from age 12-23 and he was blown away! He had no idea, because again thanks to lack of education and poor media representation, he just thought narcolepsy “is when you fall asleep randomly.”

I’m glad I was able to use that opportunity to teach another person. He was super supportive after and wowed by my story.

Support your narcoleptic buddies, yo!

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Hey so I know there are a lot of posts about being tired and I know that’s a real common but I just want people to know

if you’re sleeping a ‘normal’ amount of hours and you’re still tired

if you constantly need naps

if you always sleep past your alarm

these can be signals of sleep disorders like apnea or narcolepsy and you might wanna get that checked out ‘cause I didn’t and kinda screwed myself over for a while there so please don’t be like me friends be smart and take care of yourselves

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ah man i’m having a really hard time figuring out how to use tumblr lol

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Texts From Superheroes

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