Well, here goes nothing, part 2.

     Thank you for your kind support of my first blog.

However, I was asked to define some terms, and one of them I will do right now. Cellulitis is an infection of the skin, subcutaneous tissues or muscle tissues of the body, especially those which have been broken down by various means. It can be caused by a variety of sources, including fungi, bacteria or a virus that settles into a part of the body, or it may be a combination of more than one of these at one time, and often the only way that it can be treated is by massive doses of antibiotics. So as I said earlier, this is not an uncommon thing for me, and could happen to me at any time.

     With that said...

     A full sleep study was ordered for me for late February. As it turned out, the Study was done by Kent Cravens, an old friend of mine, who was one of the first people who taught me how to counsel before I went to Seminary. He did several studies, including an EKG, an Ultrasound (if I remember correctly), at least two brain wave tests, at least two oxygen (O2) intake tests and and some other studies. As a result, I was wired and probed with around 34 different wires and probes and I was rather uncomfortable. The first part of the study was done without oxygen, and the second part was done with it.

     I went through my prayer list during the first part of the study, but could not really fall asleep. About three and a half hours later, Kent put the O2 on me, but it wasn't doing any good, because he said that I had congestion in my nose. He changed the mask to one that fit on my mouth, but I still wasn't falling asleep, so I began to work on a problem, which was to name every highway that intersected with Highway 99 and Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and Olympia, WA, but that didn't work either, or so I thought...

     About two and a half hours later, Kent woke me up and began to take the the probes off of me and told me to get dressed. As he did so, he began to tell me the results of the study. First of all, Dr. Munoz's (the respiratory doctor) diagnosis was correct-I did have severe Sleep Apnbea, which was caused by my having an extremely large oral cavity-in other words I had a big mouth (so what else is new?). And as such, it has a capacity for collapsing when I am trying to sleep, thus blocking my airway and causing me to totally lose my O2 intake indefinitely, and do other neat tricks, such as swallowing my tongue. As a result of this, other things have happened, including a further inability to digest food, mimicry of symptoms of other diseases, including Diabetes, and an enlarged left ventricle on my heart to attempt to increase the O2 flow to my body, and my heart was ruled as being in perfect shape as late as 2006. He said that I did fall asleep, and that I want through all five stages of normal sleep, including REM (dream) sleep. However, there was one more thing that Kent found that REALLY concerned me. He found a massive intrusion of Alpha Waves in my brain while I was sleeping, which is never supposed to happen.(to be continued).