It’s 7 a.m.

I’m back from the sleep center.

No surprise to anyone I was really nervous last night.

David kept telling me that if I have sleep apnea I also have Alzheimer’s. Any time I forget something he nods knowingly.

Since I didn’t have to be there until 9:30 p.m., I wanted to keep busy yesterday.

Rupert and I spent the day up at Stephanie’s with her, her dogs, cats, horses and donkeys.

I went for 2 reasons. I already said the first and the second had to do with the blog I wrote the other day about my assault.

Every single response I got from that was positive except for hers.

I didn’t hear from her for a few days and when I did, she spoke very softly.

“Why did you write that? You kept it to yourself for all these years, why did you have to say it now?”

I knew what she was feeling.

“It upset you, didn’t it?”

“I haven’t been able to sleep since I read it. ” She was still speaking in a very quiet voice.

“You wish I had taken it to my grave , huh?”

She started to laugh, “Yep”

Anyway I wanted to see her and I wanted her to see me so things would get back to normal and she would feel better.

It was a great day. I think she’s starting to forgive me for being such a blabbermouth.

Back to me and my latest trauma.

I made plans to have dinner with Susan and Allan.

They picked me up at my house and we went out to eat. I had 2 drinks with dinner. Information that I had no intention of revealing to any doctor or whoever questioned me at my destination.

I swear I could have been in the mafia.

They drove me to the sleep center.

Susan insisted on coming up with me partly because she is the most empathetic person I’ve ever known and since she doesn’t want to go to the dentist alone (I once held her foot while she had a tooth filled), she assumed that I’d want someone with me. She was right.

The other reason was to find out if it was some kind of scam. You never know.

We got there right on time.

It was on the 12th floor of an office building and it was kind of desolate at that time of night.

We took the elevator up.

The place itself looked legit so we went in.

A young girl showed me to my room

When we got there she wanted to take a full body photo for the record but she couldn’t make her camera work so I offered to lend her my iphone and said I’d email the picture to her.

I wasn’t so reassured that she liked that idea and started to take the picture with my phone.

I felt a bit better  when another woman who was clearly in charge came over , took the camera and made it work.

There was a man in the next room who was not happy. He was standing in his room shouting

” I told them I can’t sleep in a room with no windows.”

I was walking Susan out as he was speaking and when I passed him I said “Hello”

He slammed the door in my face.

Looks like no love connection there.

We each had a private room with a bathroom.

It was very neat and like a hotel had shampoos and lotions etc but as grouchy down the hall mentioned, no window so our means of escape were limited.

Before bed I was wired up. I do mean wired. I must have had 100 wires glued (you heard me GLUED) or taped to my head, face, chest and ankles.

I wondered how I would sleep with all that on but  the woman assured me I would.

I was told to lay on the bed and she spoke to me over the loud speaker. Giving me instructions so she could calibrate all those wires.

“Without moving your head, look up, then down, then to the left, then to the right.”

There was a camera aimed at the bed.

The study began.

I slept fitfully and periodically someone would come in and adjust my wires. I counted the minutes till I could go home.

I was woken up at 6:15 a.m and disconnected.

Much to my chagrin I was told that I would probably have to follow this up with another sleepover.

I got home and scrubbed the glue out of my hair.

I told Liz and David about my night.

I said I think that I may have sleep apnea.

David tsked and said “They can fix that, the Alzheimers, not so much”.

I was home.