Ep: 10 Patient admission Story

Hello, in this episode we are having a real scenario from the sleep lab about a patient I have called Nia. The name doesn’t not reflect a real person I ever met at the lab and the incident is also not from a specific patient but rather a shadowing of my point of view at the sleep Lab has been. Any similarities to a person or event may just be a pure coincidence.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Sleep Lap Stories. If you're new here, thank you for choosing to spend this time with me. And if we've been here before, thank you for coming back and for continued support. Today's episode is a bit of uh a different one from how I've been doing the previous ones. I'm going to have a narration of actually a real lab scene, but with fictional characters and some of the um incidences, I'm going to exaggerate a bit. And the purpose of this is to highlight some of the things, or rather, how a regular visitation in the lab could look like, but also I'm not going to use any real patient's name or any real patient I've ever encountered, but rather an imaginary name which I'm going to use is near for this time, and also for any consecutive episodes I'm going to be uh in talking about real lab situations, and um this name again, it could be a coincidence if there's ever been someone in the lab with with this name or with any of the things I'm going to talk about, but I'm not going to be using any of my real encounters. That said, um the um a lot of the things are actually fictional. I've just made them up, and I have highlighted only like the medical part or maybe some of the symptoms of some of the most common sleep disorders, and I'm just going to give them a twist in in the way of narrating a stories, a story to make it more relatable, and this way I'm also encouraging that those who would want to share the experiences or in a lab or their experiences generally with sleep. I would really like to have this platform a bit more interactive in future. That you can have I can host guests or I can host people, patients mostly from that point of experience to talk about their um journey, how they've whether you've already had uh the treatment for your condition or not, or if you're already still looking for it. I would just like to have that talked about or to have people talking about that. And my aim is to give, let me say, the voice back to the patients and the power, and also to enable more people advocate for themselves when it comes to sleep disorders, or generally when it comes to seeking medical assistance for whichever condition in this case we are highlighting sleep disorders. So, welcome and enjoy this episode, and I hope you learn a f a few things. So this is going to be the first visitation for Nia, and my my starting point is that of a physician assistant where I am uh accompanying the physician while they are having their um their consultation or their interviews with Nia for their visitation, and uh also for the purpose of learning, this is just uh for the purpose of learning, the timelines will be unrealistic, considering I might be releasing the next episodes maybe on a weekly basis or on a timeline that might not reflect necessarily uh what the timeline that some of the episodes will look like. I might, for instance, I might see this is the first episode, and then the next episode might be based on Nia coming back after a couple of years or a couple of months or a couple of weeks. So have that in mind, but I will be highlighting that before each of the episodes which timeline we are playing with. And again, if you have any comments, I welcome them at the end, and also uh any interactive any any questions as well. I welcome that. Reach out to me on any of the social media platforms. I go by the name sleeplab stories, you can just send a message or an email to info at mam sleepconsultancy.com. So let's go ahead. So Nia is not the regular kind of patients we get at the uh sleep at the sleep lab today, and Nia is our intern. She came to have her internship, which is a compulsory internship for school kids here, a two-week uh compulsory internship where they are um allow they are made um told to get experience like on the real world, corporate world or real-world work environment for two weeks while they're still in school, and so Nia got to join our team at the sleep lab and wants to spend her next two weeks at the lab. Prior to this, Nia had not known anything about sleep lab, and Nia uh was not aware even what a sleep lab is. She got to know about the lab because she was just looking for something not so far from where she lives, because she she wanted to spend not to spend so much time traveling or or to wake up too early in the morning to go uh to her place of intern. So she's been apparently passing by the lab every other day while going out with her friends or going to the shop because it's like I said, it's in the same neighborhood where she lives in, and uh she decided to just drop by and look at what this building could be all about, and coincidentally asked if they had a spot for her, and she got it. So today is her first the narration is based on her first night at the lab where she became a patient because actually one bed became vacant, and not uh it was not uh planned um not planned to be vacant, but the patient who was a who was scheduled for the night cancelled, and Nia got to hear about that and decided to make her first day also quite adventurous and decided to be the patient and to stay and experience what happens in the night. So she's going to be taking us through, or rather, the doctor the narration is going to continue with Nia telling us about or like her experience with her sleep, how her sleep looks like, and um the physician is also going to ask her a bit of her background uh with sleep and just the basic things that happen like on a first night for uh any patient. So again, the night is not uh like a regular one, not for someone looking for questions, but rather someone driven by curiosity to come and yeah, and um since uh Nia lives nearby she had uh not pl I mean she just got her stuff ready, which means she had time to go home, brought her comfortable clothes for the night, her toy a few toiletries, and also her um uh tablet which got music and a few things that she usually listens to before she gets to bed or rather before she sleeps. And the the other thing is there are no complaints, there are no prayer complaints, there are also no any referrals made, which is also typically what happens to most of the regular patients coming to the lab. And Nia talks about loving sleep and being not never being able to have any problems falling asleep or staying asleep. In fact, she sleeps so much that she's usually labeled as lazy. Most of the time, her friends call her lazy, or some people think that she's just um avoiding to do stuff, or maybe just because she's a teenager and has all her hormones all over. Uh, according to the uh interview the doctor is conducted with Nia, she doesn't have any history of post-sleep, and as a child she also did not hear her mom was accompanied her, but uh since she prefers to talk for herself, she says that um her mom had never told her about being very or rather having any difficulties with sleep, but as a child she was very active and would uh would be moving like restless in places let me say where she should be sitting or staying still and would actually get in trouble for that. So, right now as a teenager, she's become more calm and is able to sleep like she describes like a rock, and also she gets to nap at least for an hour after school, which is um a good thing for her because she gets to she feels sleepy, but note that she cannot cope, she gets to be able to sleep because she finishes school mostly by around by latest one, and most of her activities after school, like sports or music or dance classes which she takes, she does them um way after like after four or around five, which is twice to twice to thrice a week, and that enables her to have at least a nap after school for an hour, which she says that she easily falls asleep. Her sleep schedule isn't as regular as March during the week. She wakes up between 6:30 and 7 a.m. depending on when the classes start, and uh she leaves her school is not far away, so she doesn't really need to travel far, and at night she goes to bed between 9 and 11, and sometimes, especially weekends, she extends past midnight, which she loves about, and because she she gets to sleep in most of the time during weekend. Nia also reports that she's able to keep optimal performance at school and is able to concentrate while in class despite feeling uh sleepy and or rather sleeping so much or or or falling asleep almost at any given chance. She doesn't fall asleep during class because she's gay keeps active, but she says during lessons which she labels are boring, or where they she they don't engage much, or lectures where they just listen, she easily falls asleep in those. And uh additionally, the doctor gets to ask from Nia if she's had any surgeries before or as a child, and the mom and also Nia deny any complications or any issues ever going on in her life before or ever being admitted at a hospital for whichever complications. So at this point, while the interview is almost being done, the capling process is also almost uh going to start, and the kipling at the moment doesn't take as much. Nia gets explained to what it takes to be or rather what's the process going to be about the cables, what all of the cables are measuring and why they are put in wherever they are being put, and that she's going to have the monitoring done throughout the night, and that the technicians are going to watch over her, and a technician and a nurse for that matter, who are the night staff, are going to watch over her, and uh, in case she needs any assistance at night, they would be there. There is a communication system to reach out to them, and also um possibility of going to the bathroom, which is uh in the room, and also a questionnaire that she would need to fill out, which is um a medical history questionnaire that is going to capture most of what is really said, but also in a bit more detail where she's going to be able to write them down, and um um the medical history for recording, I mean for documentation purposes. We ask Nia to keep her night routine as closer to what she does at home as possible, including her sleeping time, which she says is usually around 11 p.m. on days that she doesn't go to school, which is like uh to uh this night, since she is going to wake up indirectly, maybe start continue with her duties at the sleep lab observation, and also um in the morning she's going to talk to the uh physician on the outcome of her sleep. Nia requests if she can sleep in, which is of course uh possible since we are trying to capture her sleep as much as she does it at home. So a few hours into the day, or rather, the regular sleep studies are stopped after around 6 at the labs at most labs, but on her request to have uh sleep extended or to sleep in, we grant her request, and uh since um that can be uh organized earlier now that she's said it now, and the staff in the morning will be informed that she is going to be extending, or rather, she will be let to sleep as much and wake up on her own. No alarm clocks, no waking her up. Most rooms are no soundproof, and this is going to be made possible for that matter. So we are going to observe the sleeping. No mention or no obvious complaints from the subjectively and also objectively from the mother, and also uh due to the excitement, we are sure near that everything's going to be fine and that we're going to ensure her comfort, and that the teams that are there are also going to be available in case of anything, and that the doctor is also mostly in uh within reach or over the phone in case of anything in the night, and also there is a communication system which is a phone next to the bed where she can reach out to the technician. We ask the patient, Mia, if she has any questions at this point, and if she needs to tell anything or any other incidences, any pets or anything that she has at home, which are not going to be here tonight. She mentions having a dog at home, a puppy, which sometimes goes sleeps with her, but most of the time they keep the dog to sleep in their um in their hallway. So for tonight, we just have near keeping to their schedule, I mean to their routine, which is uh their sleep time and also a couple of rituals before bedtime. No alarm clock is set, and tomorrow morning, the the next morning, the sleep will be reviewed, and we are all very curious to see what's going to look like. Thank you for tuning in to this episode, and I welcome you to review with us the sleep study of Nia, a teenage young lady who's come to the lab out of pure curiosity, no complaints, and just wanting to see how her sleep looks like. See you next time and have a good day or a good night.