Jeremiah ran in the Smokey Hill River Festival Fitness Five two mile race this morning.  At eight years old, he was the youngest and definitely the smallest in this adult race.  There were about 18 runners in the eleven and under category.

Joel ran with Jer while Sarah and I waited at the finish line.  The race volunteers were the first to notice Jeremiah turning the corner towards the finish line.  They yelled, “Look at that little guy!”  Most runners got a few polite claps. But everyone really cheered for Jer.  I was so proud of him!  His goal was to finish in under 27 minutes, he finished in 24 minutes 15 seconds! He’s going to do a 5k next.

Oh my, how did I miss this great occasion?

May 14th, 2009 was the 10 year anniversary of gentlewhisper.com!

On May 12th, 1999 I turned in my last paper at Evangel University and completed the requirements for my BA degree.  Two days later I registered the domain name gentlewhisper.com.

I have neglected the site a lot since going back to school for my M.Div.  But along the way it has been a good friend to me.  Most of all because it has introduced me to all of you.  My life would be dramatically different if it weren’t for GentleWhisper.com.  Without it, I would have gone crazy when the kids were toddlers and  I wouldn’t have met many of my closest friends.

We’re spending the month of June in Salina, Ks.  Joel has TDY orders with the Army National Guard.  The four of us are sharing a one room hotel suite.  It’s small, but it has a full size fridge, dishwasher and a range top.  The kids share a roll-away bed that we fold out at the foot of our bed each night.  Not much for privacy or peace and quiet.

Actually, it’s very peaceful right now.  Joel went out for a run and the kids passed out over an hour ago.  They’be been staying up late, getting up early and playing hard since we got here.

You’d think living in a one room hotel with two kids in the middle of Kansas would drive a woman crazy… Not yet. We’re really enjoying ourselves.  I like Salina, and I don’t mind living in such a small space with just a few things.  It’s easier to keep the place clean.  I can’t ever get overwhelmed with dirty dishes since we only have four plates, four spoons etc. etc.  I didn’t bring enough clothes for laundry to get me down either.  Ahh I love the simple life… as long as it includes free wifi and a couple laptops, and it does.

We’ve had several adventures sicne we got here Thursday night.  I’ll write separate posts to share those photos and stories.

Who knows, maybe I’ll be a blogger again someday.  I’ve probably lost most of my readers after slacking so long. This is my 1,955th post though… I guess I might as well keep writing.

View my sleep study story and slideshow.

Isn't that great? I went to the doctor because I'm tired all the time. They did tons of test and told me that... I'm tired all the time. Yeh...thanks! But hey, he's the man with the fancy deree on the wall.

After years of constant exhaustion and countless naps that don’t help a bit, I finally got a doctor to take me serious. I went to a neurologist and had a sleep study done.

The first test was a polysomnogram.  It showed that I have “elevated respitory effort related arousals.”  That means I have a little trouble breathing when I’m asleep,  this disturbs my sleep and keeps me from getting the normal amount of rem sleep.  It’s not bad enough to call apnea or hypopnea… I don’t need a CPAP. [A machine to help me breathe while sleeping.]  Instead, my doctor prescribed a dental snoring device.  I don’t know if I snore or not… but the thing is suppose to reposition the mouth so that the airway stays clear… making it easier to breathe.  I’m all about breathing when I sleep.  It seems important anyway.

Since I didn’t have apnea, they kept me for a multiple sleep latency test.  This measured how long it took me to fall asleep during four naps through out the day.  It also checked to see if I went into REM during the 20 minute naps.  I didn’t.  That’s good!  Going into REM during such a short nap would indicate narcolepsy.  Thankfully, I don’t have that.  But the test did show that I fell asleep within 3 minutes during each nap after a good night’s sleep.  Apparently that’s not good.  I consider the ability to fall asleep quickly in any circumstance to be a special talent… It’s not that I fall asleep when I don’t want to, like someone with narcolepsy might.  I just can choose to sleep anywhere at anytime… and I choose to a lot.  Ask my CHBOLC platoon. During officer basic, I slept standing up in the back of the classroom, slept at my desk during 15 minute breaks, and slept in the dirt with my head on my ruck…. anytime we weren’t doing something. My platoon leader shared some military wisdom, “Never stand when you can sit. Never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep”  I took this advice to heart.

The thing with hypersomnia is that you can nap all you want. It won’t help a bit…  It’s not that I don’t sleep enough at night.  I usually do.  But I wake up tired.  Naps are just as pointless.  Sleep isn’t refreshing… but it’s always appealing.  No, it isn’t because I’m depressed and want to avoid life.  I. Am. Tired.  I’ve been saying that for years,  now I have scientific proof.  The doctor gave me a sample of some very expensive medicine to try.  It’s a stimulant that should help with the excessive daytime sleepiness.  I’ll let you know if it works… and if my insurance will cover it!

They dont’ actually know WHY I feel this way.  Ahh but they gave me a name for it and a couple prescriptions… that’s something! Now I can obsessively research and figure out how to stay awake… I’m sharing all of my research at squidoo.com/hypersomnia.

Editor’s note: Apparently I really am tired.  Joel just told me about at least 5 spelling errors in this post.  Ugh!

After growing rather tired of chronic fatigue, I finally decided to get a  sleep study.  I checked in at the sleep clinic last night at 8:30.  The bedrooms are in the basement so I never even noticed the tornado sirens.

They glued lots of junk to my head, put straps around my chest, stuck tubes up my nose and in my mouth and then told me to go to sleep… yeh.  I spent most of the night dreaming that I was awake.  I spent another large portion of the night actually being awake… but I’m not sure how much of my late night boredom was real and how much was imagined.

They told me that I could go home at 6:30 a.m. if the sleep study showed that I have apnea.  If it didn’t then I’d have to stay all day today for further studies. [I can't hear the word apnea without thinking of the sitcom Mad about You.]

I woke up early this morning to the good/bad news that I had to stay all day long.  I had to take 4 twenty minute naps 2 hours apart.  Any of you who know me know that I’m generally thrilled at the idea of taking naps… the more the better.  But they’re not as plesant when you’ve got stuff glued to your face and they come wake you up after a few minutes of dreaming about being in a sleep study.  During my last nap, I actually dreamed that the technician came in and told me I would have to stay another two hours for one more nap test.  I cried.  In my dream… then she woke me up and told me I was done.  Yay!

It took a really long time to get all of that glue/putty gunk out of my hair.  I finally discovered that putting conditioner in my hair made it much easier to comb it out.  That’s a free tip just for you googlers who found my site by searching for: hypopnea, sleep apnea or Daytime Multiple Sleep Latency Test. [Gotta get all those keywords in there.]

And now… for your giggling pleasure.  I have posted photos of me looking ridiculous.

I’ve never baked pineapple upside down cake.  I don’t even remember reading a recipe.

But I had a can of pineapple, a box of jiffy corn bread mix and… a dream.

Ahhh and the results were delicious!

Here are some slightly obscure, rather vague instructions:

I drained a can of pineapple and put it in the pan. I simmered some butter, brown sugar and a little pineapple juice together then poured that over the pineapple. Next I followed the directions on the Jiffy box and poured that batter on top of the pineapple mixture. Cooked it for 24 minutes at 400. Let it cool, then turned it upside down.

I decided that the daily “bite sized updates” was cluttering my homepage and probably driving some of my readers crazy.  But… I like having them on my blog.  I don’t always have time to write a full post, but I can share an interesting link or give you a brief insight into my life in a status update.

So… I moved the daily updates to a new category called 140 Characters.  It’s called that because that’s the limit that Twitter places on posts.  For some reason, I really enjoy the art of using exactly 140 characters.  I’m not sure why.

The new category is hidden from the main page and my RSS feed.  If you miss it, you can read those posts here.  They’re updated each night at midnight.  You can also subscribe in a feed reader.

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