4:30 wake up. Consider not doing this whole thing. Drag a blanket into the living room, put two discs of Friends and one of Northern Exposure into the DVD player. Hopefully this will get me through the next four and a half hours...
4:48 check the TV guide channel to see if there's anything on, just in case something grabs my attention. There is nothing. And the music on the TV guide channel was really annoying. It was the Mouseketeers. Start the DVDs.
5:15 I'm already tired, and I I've been up for 45 minutes. And I'm hungry. I think I can eat...
6:07 It's surprisingly light outside. I can hear a bird chirping. It's kind of sad that watching the credits on this show, I recognize which episodes each clip come from. Gotta do something else to stay awake.
6:57 Decided to take a picture of myself. Accidentally hit the off button. Took a few pictures...eeewww. I'm breaking down and putting on under eye concealer.
7:56 One more hour...
I had a whole list of things to do this morning. I did none of them except write on my blog. Oh well.
8:37 Off I go
9:00 Get to the doctor's office. The testing room is set up with a bed where all the wires are set out, and the tool box with the conductive wax gel crap and gauze and other assorted EEG equipment. I sit in the chair at the foot of the bed and she measures my head and starts marking it with a wax pencil. She tapes stuff to my forehead, temples and collar bones, and sticks stuff to my scalp in the hair with the waxy stuff. The consistency is somewhere between vaseline and warm candle wax, with little gauze patches and tiny little metal spoons with wires attached stuck in there. The stuff in my hair is somewhat akin to getting highlights, except heavier, stickier and less desirable.
When she's all done she gets me set up in the bed. Since it's only for a half hour, they don't really worry about you being too comfortable, but sadly I am a seasoned pro at this (it is my third EEG) and I want to be comfortable so I brought my own blanket and pillow. Anyone who knows me knows I always need a blanket, and the one pillow they have is grossly inadequate.
She goes out of the room and starts talking to me through a microphone. They have an infrared camera so they can watch me, and they have me do some things to see how I react before I sleep. First they want a baseline reading, so they have me open and close my eyes a few times. Then they ask me to hyperventilate (my favorite part of the test
NOT) to see how my brain does when it's oxygen deprived, then they flash a strobe light at me, faster and faster, since some people's epilepsy is triggered by that. Then she tells me to relax for half an hour, but try to stay on my back. Great. I am a side and front sleeper. I can understand I guess, they don't want the wires all messed up, but I wonder if I am actually going to go to sleep. I think that's why they want you to be sleep deprived. So you'll sleep no matter how uncomfortable you are.
10:16 I just walked out of the doctor's office. I have wads of gunk in my hair. I had to go in the bathroom and get the worst ones off of my forehead, but there are still so many in my hair it's funk nasty. I also still have the patches on my collar bones. She told me they would come off easier with warm water, and that without it the skin just rips off. Joy. I'm starving, and so ready to get some wonderfully unhealthy fast food breakfast, drive through of course, go home and shower this gunk off and go to bed.
Nasty Hair!
11:00 Home. Long hot shower now. I hope this was more scintillating for you all than it was for me. I'm going to bed.
