Sleep Study Complaints

I was a little uncomfortable going in. I knew what the sleep study entailed, and there wasn't anything I couldn't handle, but there were a lot of things I would mind. Just a little. So, when the sleep study tech came in to get me started, I was in a mood to be judgy. I was cranky. She had an annoying voice and too much eyeliner.

But even good-mood-me would have been put off by the incessant failed attempts at conversation. She tried. She tried so hard! And she seemed to believe that failure meant try harder, rather than stop.

Did I have a long day? Was it an easy day? What do I do for a living? Oh, do you like photography? Do you like to take any particular kind of photograph? Are you left or right handed? You know, her four-year-old is really good at drawing and he's left handed, and she heard that left-handed people were more likely to be creative types because they use the right side of their brain. That's a funny shirt. You know, her son had chocolate pudding yesterday, the kind with the swirls. When she wants something sweet, she really likes chocolate pudding. Am I married or single? Do I have children? Does my family live near by? Her family lives in Dubuque, but she visits them on the weekends so her four-year-old can get to know his grandparents. Did I go to school at the University? What did I study? When did I graduate?  She's at Kirkwood getting her gen ed out of the way, which takes a really long time, because she works a lot and she's hoping to get into the psych program at the University.

And that's not the whole of it. There was more.

When I laid down in bed, she asked if I'd "like the blankie?"

I could have said, "That's a personal question."

I could have said, "I don't want to talk to you."

I could have said, "I am perfectly capable of pulling up a blanket, and would prefer that you not talk to me like I'm a child."

What I don't like is that my only two options were 1) unpleasant one-sided conversation, and 2) confrontation.  This is the same woman who woke me up three or five times in the night to readjust the wires around me, then woke me up at 5:30am to get them off. And talk some more. She had more questions. At 5:30am. Questions with no medical purpose. After a night spent trying to sleep in a position that I do not sleep in, lying there, unable to do what I need to do to fall asleep, she wanted to chat.