On Wednesday, we celebrated Delaney’s 9th birthday. She has been anticipating it for quite some time as she pretty much knew what she was getting for her birthday present. She had told us long ago that the only thing she wanted for her birthday was a Nintendo DS hand-held gaming system. While they are a bit pricey for a birthday present, we went ahead and got her the Metallic Rose colored one that she wanted. In fact, I took her last week and let her pick it out herself, but we didn’t let her open it until her birthday. She really enjoys it and has 3-games so far that she plays on it. Aunt Sue bought her one of the games that she is now playing. It is actually a very nice little unit.
This week we got the results of the kids’ scores on the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) tests that they are required to take at the end of the school year to ensure that they are proficient. The tests score on a range from 0-600, with 400 being the minimum passing score. Ben scored a perfect 600 on both his math and and reading, and well above 500 on science. Delaney scored a perfect 600 on history and social science, a 594 on math and well above 500 on reading. We are extremely proud of them for doing so well, and we celebrated by going to out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (yum)! I am not sure when they got so smart, but they did spend a lot of time studying this past year.
On Monday, I had a follow-up for a sleep study that I underwent recently. Karen had been urging me to go get a sleeep study for some time as she said that I stop breathing in my sleep. I have also had a lot of migraine headaches over the past year and a half that I have been seeing a neurologist for. I was finally convinced to get the sleep study after a co-worker in my office who had recently had one told me that the first question they asked him was whether he was experiencing migraines. I asked my neurologist for a referral and I did the study on Saturday, July 12th. I got to spend the night in the hospital wired up like a marionette. On Monday, I finally got the official results that I have severe sleep apnea. An apnea event is any time that you stop breathing for 10 or more seconds in your sleep. Severe sleep apnea is indicated when you experience 30 or more apnea events in an hour. According to my sleep study, I had 76 apnea events in an hour! I was never getting into stage 4 or REM sleep and my oxygen levels plummeted to 81%. Needless to say I was shocked, as I didn’t even realize that this was happening (aside from Karen telling me). As a result, I was given a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device that I have to wear to sleep. It is essentially a pump that pushes pressurized air through a tube attached to my nose that keeps my airway from collapsing during sleep. The device was delivered on Thursday and I have now had 2 nights of sleep using it. The difference has been like night and day. I actually wake up feeling rested and awake, instead of tired and burned out. I am hoping it will make a real change in how I feel and significantly improve my overall health and well-being. Apparently sleep apnea is a very common and very under-diagnosed condition, and the effects of it can be life altering and even life threatening. I am thankful I found out about it now so that I can treat it appropriately.
This coming week we will be heading to Vermont for my brother Andy’s wedding. We are looking forward to seeing everyone, albeit for a short up and back trip. I have decided to rent a car, as I can get a mid-size for the extended weekend for a little over $100 and save the wear and tear on my own vehicles. We were hoping to rent a prius, but the price tag more than double and I couldn’t justify the price difference (even with the gas savings).
Karen has been getting psyched about sewing and embroidery again. Two weeks ago we moved the bedroom furniture from our upstairs guest room into the basement guest room and converted the upstairs room into a sewing room. I bought Karen a new 6′ poly table from Staples to support her sewing and embroidery machines. She also set up her Dress Form (manequin), and we will be getting her Vikant Ultimate Box connected to the computer so that she can download new embroidery designs and move them over to her Brother embroidery machine. She is a little tentative about the technology side of the embroidery machine, but I am going to help her through it so she can see how easy it really is. Today we need to find all of her embroidery machine accessories (hoops/threads, etc.) as they are still packed in a box somewhere! Yes….we still have a handful of boxes that we never unpacked from our last move!
Ben has been having fun everyday with the neighborhood kids who invade the house for massive X-Box Halo 3 gaming sessions. It is actually a lot of fun, but we find ourselves having to turn off the TV and pushing them out of the house to get them to get some physical exercise, not that the beanpole needs it! Ben is looking forwrad to starting at middle school in the fall and was one of just a couple of kids from his elementary school to be accepted into the Math and Science program at one the local middle schools. As such, he will be having to make friends with a whole new set of people that he doesn’t know.
Well, time to go do some yardwork. This morning I had to put a new battery in the truck and get the tire repaired for a leaky valve stem. I was going to mow the lawn after that, but it was drizzling so I opted to wait. The sun has now been out for a few hours, so the lawn should be good to go!
Tags: Tobin Family Update
