Dahlia's Big Test

Dahlia had a sleep test done in a sleep lab. Because she doesn't sleep well, or much at all her pediatrician wanted to make sure that we are treating the correct cause, rather then the most prominent symptom. Doctor Jackson explained that lack of sleep can cause children to be hyperactive, and have difficult transitioning, and so forth which mimics ADHD. Or it could be she has ADHD and that would certainly explain the difficulty getting to sleep, and the shortness of her sleep cycle. As well as the difficulty in preschool sitting still, and so forth. Since the answer will dramatically change the route of treatment we use it is a question we needed the answer to.

So one $2800 test later I am hoping that we will have the answer (YEAH for insurance that covers most of it!!!). Dahlia did the test Friday night. Her appt to see her pediatrician is in April, so they should have the test interpreted, and sent over by then.
The tech was . . . . . surprised by the volume, and the range of Dahlia's questions. She kindly explained what she was putting where, and why. Here is Dahlia part way through the applying of "stickers".

Here she is all done with leads, and so forth. Dahlia did amazingly well. It was not comfortable in a few parts, and she was pretty nervous about what would happen next. She was a little surprised when we expected her to lay down and fall asleep.


This little doodad caused us some heartache when the tech realized that some of the signals from Dahlia's test were funky. 3 phone calls to someone else, 2 replaced "stickers" (ouch!!), multiple trips back and forth from our room to the control room (right next door) to check if pulling this pin or that pin out helped, 1 time under the bed to check the connections, 1 moving the bed completely away from the wall to check those connections, 2 times to reboot the computer, 3 replaced wires and FINALLY the equipment was working. It took about an hour to find the problem, turns out one of the wires was partially shorted so the signal it was sending out was distorted, and it distorted the ones around it also.

Luckily Dahlia was pretty bored by most of it, other then the 2 replaced stickies that hurt. So she fell asleep about 5 minutes before the problem was declared to be solved.

She is still wearing some of the stickies since I can't convince her that it would be best just to rip them off quickly and be done with it. Some have fell off, some have been "helped" that last little bit, and some have been soaked off in the tub.

Mom and Dad came up to watch Bobbie, THANK YOU!!! Mom wasn't feeling well, so Dad took us out for a late breakfast/early lunch on Saturday. At that point Dahlia had all of the stickers still on her face, but non of the tubing in the last picture. We ate, the girls were very well behaved. The ladies had a quick trip to the ladies room to clean off hands and faces. When we were walking back to the car Dad joked about leaving on the stickers since they were working well for her so far. It turns out that an gentleman at the table next to us had paid for our whole ticket as he was leaving. Guess he figured short hair, and the funky looking stickies meant something much worse then it was. Oh, Dear!!