Quality of Sleep

I had a Dept Meeting this morning and my boss actually shared with us his medical condition on “Sleep Apnea”. Its a sleeping disorder which can make you stop breathing multiple times while you are sleeping. I had this condition a few years ago too, not sure if I still have it now but I just wanna share my experience with you.

A few years ago, I had so much trouble sleeping that I decided one fine day to visit the doctor. Don’t get me wrong. I sleep like a log every time. However, my sleep are often interrupted by short snoring bursts that will wake me up from the sleep. Sometimes I will realize it, sometimes not. These short snoring bursts are a result of my breathing being blocked by my throat muscles while sleeping. It is normal for any human being to stop breathing while sleeping.. sometimes about 5-10 times per night. But having it at a rate of more than 15 times per night may pose a potential health problem like Heart Conditions, Heart Attack and what nots.

In the mornings, I will wake up feeling like how I felt the night before, sometimes worse! Feeling tired, lethargic, restless.. all that stuff. Even if you have more than 7 hours of sleep, you felt like only slept through 1 or 2 hours. This is the result of your interrupted sleep. You see, there are 4 categories of sleep in which the docs classify them. They are Light Sleep, Deep Sleep, Rapid Eye Movements and one more which I can’t recall. Basically, if your body did not get that few hours of Deep Sleep, you are not really sleeping.

Anyway, my Family Doctor referred me to the Polyclinic and then finally to NUH. I had to go for a Sleep Study. As funny as it sounds, the treatment is not cheap. I had to spend one night in NUH for the Study, plugged into all sorts of devices and machinery, all over your body. All that for $400 per night. Fortunately, it was fully paid by Medisave.

After the study, the doc said that my breathing did stop more often than normal during my sleep. About 30 times, the longest was 15 secs long (The worse they ever recorded was 70 times). I had 3 options. One was to obviously go to surgery but that wasn’t a 100% cure because your muscles can grow back as you age and start the condition all over again. The other was to get this breathing apparatus that you wear over your mouth while you sleep, some sort of a mask to keep your airflow unobstructed. The final one and most expensive one was to get this Small pump that will pump air into your throat to open up your airways if you were to stop breathing during your sleep. This machine itself costs about $2k. :p

The doctor told me to went home and think about it. I did went home, but I did my own research.

Now I sleep sideways. So that my muscles won’t block my airways when I sleep. Its not a fool-proof plan, but hey it works for me.

Comfort Zone?

Many times… have I seen or heard of couples who are.. “not so much in love” but are still together or they get married anyway.

After that, they still complain about how their life is “miserable”, “unloved”, “mistreated”, yadda yadda yadda… you get my drift. Why? Why are they still together despite they, themselves, realizing that their partner is not what they seem to be? Is it Love? Is it Pity? Or is it just afraid to get out of their comfort zone?

People hardly change, even for their loved ones. Yes, some do. I’m just stating that some stubborn people don’t.

Oh yeah. WordPress Account re-activated.

Hi ya’all.

Looks like I have re-activated my wordpress account after leaving it idle for the past 3 years or so. Maybe its about time.  I always wanted to start writing blogs again. Facebook Notes doesn’t do justice to whatever thoughts I have in my brain. WordPress just seems.. just right. And wha-do-u-know? WordPress has gotten better!

So many new stuff.. that I got lost trying to post a new.. erm.. post.

Anyway, If you all are free, do visit another “Blog” by a friend of mine that have also migrated to WordPress. Full of nice, interesting reads and some hand-drawn cartoons. www.happeepill.com.

Birthdays

Once you reached 30+ of age. The importance of having Birthday celebrations just becomes very… erm… cliché. I dunno.. maybe its just me. I don’t feel excited anymore about my birthday coming up. Don’t get me wrong.. I appreciate friends and families who still wishes me “Happy Birthday”. But I guess that’s about it.

Oh well. *shrugs*

Project: XJR-BOX, Final Stage

My Fwibbox

Finally it is done. I have sprayed “Medium Blue” color over the top cover and completed it by evening time just now. As you can all see, the Blue is totally not the same as the Blue on the bike. Blame it on the color-blind people who made the Color Spray Product. The Cap, the Sticker and the Name doesn’t match the actual product color. It says “Medium Blue” and the Cap is exactly the same the the Bike Blue but the sticker is a bit darker. I didn’t mind for it being darker but a different shade? Sheesh.. some people have no pride in the work product they make.

I have also fixed the “2nd” Brake light in the box itself. Yes, there is actually a brake light inside that thing. I just wired it up to the brake light so that it will light up whenever I squeeze the brake lever. (DUH!)

Overall, I wasn’t too happy with the end product. I just put this as a temporary beautification while I search for a better, newer replacement for the Box. To tell you the truth, today wasn’t a good day for Spraying the box. I had a couple of minor mishaps, like newspaper sticking on to the paint, paint splattering everywhere, etc etc. There is even an area on the box which I didn’t spray properly, with the white base paint still visible.

What the heck.

Moral of the Story: Just get a new box.

Project: XJR-Box, Stage 2

Fwibbox

Ok, I have left the previous paint job to dry overnight and now for the next additional stage. I call it additional coz… I planned it at the last minute. heh..

Since my bike, Mr Fwibbox, have a “Racing Flag” theme, why not I add some to the box as well? GENIOUS! Stickers? How do I do that? Its gonna be difficult coz the box has so many concaves and curves. Pasting a sticker or an actual vinyl will create bumps and folds. So, a good solution is to spray it on!

So, I spend my afternoon pasting masking tape all over the side of the box as a mask for the flag vinyl. I cut out the “Racing Flag” shape almost the same as the one on the picture above.

After pasting and cutting and pasting more newspaper over the other do-not-disturb areas, the white paint was sprayed on again using the same spray and wait method.

By evening time, and after 3 coats of white paint, the job is done. The white spray color is almost empty too. Now is the hard part… to peel off the masked area carefully. I have to do it so, coz the paint may stick to the masking tape while peeling and will ruin the entire paint job. So, to avoid that, I ran a penknife along the edge of the pattern so that the paint die-die will not peel together with the masking tape.

The “racing flag” vinyl is finally complete. Tomorrow, The Blue Color for the top cover.

DONE!

Project: XJR-Box, Stage 1

Since I did not want my 5-day MC to go to a waste, I decided to do a project which I have been longing to do since I got back my FWIBBOX a.k.a. My Yamaha XJR400 motorbike. I’m going to re-spray the Top Section of the Box coz the Plastic material the Box is made from is disintegrating before my very eyes.

I took off the Helmet Box from its rack, took away its contents and started to Sandpaper the Top Cover with a 400-grade sandpaper (rough as sand). The “sawdust” was so much, I had to cover my mouth while sandpapering (is there such a word?). Alas, I used some water while sandpapering so that the “sawdust” is kept to a minimal. After that, it was time to Sandpaper the same area again with a grade-800 sandpaper so that the surface will be as smooth as a baby’s bottom (or how I hope it to be).

The Red Reflector was also taken off and after covering the bottom area of the box, I began spraying White all over the top cover, in a “W” movement. I will stop once I have sprayed the entire top cover. Go to have my rest and continue with more coats later on. This was to make sure that the paint was evenly spreaded out and no surface will be left uncovered.

Did I just Bleached it?

After spraying 3 coats of White Spray paint, I decided to stop as the sky was getting really dark. Moisture and Paint doesn’t go very well together. It will ruin the paint job or worse, water will be trapped under the paint and will leave bumps on the surface (just like my Shingles.. haha!).

Next Will be spraying some “vinyl” deco on the bottom-side area of the box.

AzMean the Painter…

Shingles. No not “Single”.. SHINGles.

Shingles? What’s dat? (Dats wat I asked when I heard the doctor said what I had).

It’s a 2nd Stage of Chicken Pox. Wha??? Chicken Pox?!? I had my last Chicken Pox when I was in… in… wen was it? Primary 5? Primary 7? Whoa… dat was like 17 years ago!

The doctor explained to me that the Chicken Pox (let’s call it CP) virus have not completely been eradicated from my body. Which means.. it is there even after the CP was gone.. just waiting for the rite time to strike again, especially when my immune system is down.

It did that and last week, I had this pain over my Right Chest which I thot was just a muscluar pain due to wrong sitting or sleeping position. I applied lots of Deep Heat Cream and Tiger Balm Plasters but to no avail. The pain was there 24/7… and it was really tiring me out. I was like streching my body every moment I can just to get some relief. Till last Friday, I had enough of it and went to visit my friendly neighbourhood doctor.

He said it was probably some muscle strain and he gave me some Painkillers and Muscle Relaxant. I did take the pain away but the pain did come back when the meds wore out. After going out with Putri on Sat Nite, going to her Friend’s Wedding Dinner, my body started to develop rashes over the same area the pain was “residing”. Thinking that it was some sort of medicinal allergic reaction, I went back to the same doctor.

With a relaxed face, my doctor told me I had Shingles or also known as “Herpes Zoster” (sounds like some alien race). The “muscular” pain was one of the symtoms and he explained to me how I probably got it, complete with a Doctor’s Encyclopedia in his hands showing some nasty looking pictures. Ouch.

*Scratch*Scratch*

After that, he slapped me with a 5-day MC (yahoo?) and a pack of 50 tablets of anti-biotics which I need to complete within my 5-day MC (dat means I have to take 2 tabs, 5 times per day). Not forgetting a small, miniscule tube of cream for the pox.

Now, my chest feels like a bubble wrap with small boils popping out like nobody’s business. It’s itchy, but I can’t scratch it. Popping one boil means that the scar will be there permanently. No way man. I want my chest to be squeaky clean. haha!

I will be visiting Mr Doctor again this Sat for a re-assesment and a possible MC extention (dat’s wat he said!). And during this 5-day MC, I had done some small projects to fill up my boredom. Stay tune!