76%

So I've become a bit stressed lately, as I just learned that my blood oxygen levels drop incredibly low when I'm sleeping. I found this out through a sleep study I just had done a week or so ago. My spouse has been bugging me for years now to go get this addressed as he has freaked out a few times when he has witnessed me stop breathing during the night. He has timed it and just about the time he is ready to call the ambulance, I start breathing again.

So after the night at the hospital, he asked me what my O2 levels were prior to them putting me on the forced air machine. I didn't know as I hadn't thought to ask. Afterall, they woke me up at 6:00am and sent me home. Then I waited for the holiday weekend to finish figuring the office would be closed. So I finally called and learned that my levels were down to 76%! From what little I know, this is bad. Really bad. They said once they put me on air, my levels came right up to 87%-97% so a machine has now been ordered. I should get it in another week.

So now I get some time to freak out about this. This morning, I woke with a really bad headache and my spouse said that's no wonder as I had a really bad night sleeping. He kept moving me to get me breathing again. Sounds to me, like he had a bad night, too.

I've asked quite a few nurses and doctors just what this low level means as I know per Emergency Standards (EMT/Paramedic stuff) that oxygen would be administered. They all just say yes it's very low and nothing else. So I went looking online and kept coming across people saying that they got very low readings of 85% and were put on oxygen. When my spouse was suffering from his gallbladder episode, he told me most people are unconscious under 85% and under 80%, you are DEAD!

So here I am getting death levels and I need to wait.....

Have I ever mentioned I'm not a very patient person?

So I have googled Sleep Apnea and Hypoxemia. Turns out it's a REALLY good thing I finally got that sleep study done. At the rate I was going, I might not have had a few more years to play with this. Besides, even if I did have the years, could I really afford to lose more brain cells?