A few hours ago, Rob texted me asking if I was awake. I called him immediately (I figured it had to be something urgent and bad for him to text me at almost 4am) and found out that Sparky is not doing well. He is in obvious pain and the cancer has almost certainly come back. To do more treatments at this point would be both financially foolish and cruel. Last time bought him many more months of life, including a trip to the lake in New Hampshire and a chance for all of us to spend time together as a family again... but now making him go through surgery recovery and all of that when he's already 11 years old... well, it wouldn't be fair to him. Rob is taking him in to the vet today.

I can't figure out what I feel the most sad about... the idea of Sparky dying (which is the least logical, since once he dies he won't be in pain and won't care anymore), or me being sad about missing Sparky, or me being sad about Rob being alone. I've spent the last half hour or so looking back through my journal... I found a few references to Sparky that made me smile...

5/02/1999: My son is so sweet. He just said to my husband: "Daddy? Sparky name is Best Friend. He my Best Friend." Of course, 5 minutes earlier he had said "Daddy, Sparky got a dirty penis" but still, he's a very sweet kid.

9/08/1999: Elliott's dad and his dad's wife are really nice people, and I think it went really well, despite the fact that Sparky peed and threw up on their floor, and knocked over a lamp.

I posted this video last night of my kitties:


Most of this is is Ronon playing with his mousie. It's set to a Toy Dolls song. :)

I've now had 4 weekly vitamin D pills, 1 B12 shot, and 3 weekly IV iron treatments. My iron levels are improving but I haven't had any of the other tests run again. Next week I have my second B12 shot with my 4th iron treatment.

I still feel listless and achy, but it's better than it had been. I have still been having trouble sleeping. In the last week and a half or so I've skipped an entire night of sleep twice, just waiting until the following night to go to sleep. Arg. Last night was one of those times. I slept quite long and fairly well, considering, but I think it had more to do with not having slept the night before than any real improvement in my ability to sleep.

I had my 3rd of 5 weekly IV iron infusions today. Last week they checked my blood again: my iron was 17 before, it's 57 now. My Ferritin was also 57, up from 7. Most of my other levels were about the same, but it takes a while for your body to process all that rusty Chevette goodness into usable blood stuff.

The thing I dislike about this process is that I always feel so cold. Having room temp/cool liquids infused into your veins sucks. It really does.

Danvers High School says students can’t say ‘meep’

A quote from the article in the Boston Herald:

The Salem News reported Principal Thomas Murray banned the word after school officials got wind of a student plan brewing on Facebook to stage a major disruption on school grounds using the “meep.”

Thank god they're protecting us, and the children!

I have been on Royal Caribbean cruises in the past. In fact, our honeymoon was a 12 night cruise around the Mediterranean. However, some things have gone downhill in a BIG way. Also, I saw a food-handling staff member in the Windjammer Cafe picking his nose, and when I reported it to someone who looked like they were in a position of authority, said person just smiled and said "yes!" over and over, obviously not speaking a word of English. (Here's a hint: if you don't speak English, FUCKING DON'T ANSWER QUESTIONS!!!!!!!!) Plus, the food was several steps below what I'd experienced with them before. I actually left most of a slice of chocolate cake uneaten at dinner, because it was so blah and meh that it wasn't worth the calories. they've really gone downhill.

So anyway, when we were on our honeymoon cruise, we put a $100 downpayment on a future cruise, without having to specify where or when. One of the things we were thinking about was going in the spring for Dominic's spring break, and getting Rob to come with. Well, out of curiosity, I tried doing some searches on their website. THEIR SEARCH SUCKS. Beyond sucks. Their search is the most useless thing I've ever seen. I specified a departure month, a destination, and a departure port. The results showed me about nine jillion cruises leaving for other destinations, leaving from other ports, and not leaving even during the same MONTH I'd specified. What the fuck?

And the results don't tell you the sailing dates, so you can't even scan through and see what might be a possibility. They just say "sailing in Feburary 2010 and March 2010" well ISN'T THAT SPECIAL since I ASKED FOR APRIL @&#($&#$ SAILINGS!!!!!

I'm about ready to say fuck them entirely and go with another cruise line for future cruises. I'm even willing to bail on the $100 we deposited just to not have to deal with their incompetent shit.

Dan and I went to a meeting with Dominic's teachers today to discuss his troubles with getting homework and projects done.

At the end of the meeting, Dominic came in and we went to his locker to see how organized it was. It was scary, to say the least, but somehow he had 4 copies of his Spanish text book. WTF?!

Today we finally took the kayaks down to the reservoir. We have two kayaks, (they're my mom's, but we keep them in the off-season since they do no good in New Hampshire when nobody is there,) one single and one tandem. We have these foam blocks that snap into Dan's rooftop bike rack, and since the boat launch area is literally two blocks away, we just put a kayak on the car, put a rope through the bow-end handle, and then whoever sat in the passenger seat held the ropes through the sunroof to make sure that it didn't go anywhere. Dan drove really slow. He took Dominic the first trip and left him there with the kayak, then came back for me and the other kayak. It worked out much more smoothly than we'd expected.

The weather was great--cool enough to not need a jacket but also not get sweaty from the exertion of paddling. I got this nifty pic with my phone of Dominic:



Several hours later, we were eating dinner when we heard sirens. Several emergency vehicles came zooming down our street. This is very unusual. Our street only has houses on one side; the other side is just woods for a very long way, and the houses it does have are pretty far apart. And even the more towny parts of town, well, it's a pretty small town.

A few minutes later we saw more flashing lights go by. Dominic started telling us what each one was as they went by every few minutes. When he said "that one was a police boat," I had to call him on it. I mean, yeah firetrucks and ambulances, sure, but there is no way that the last set of flashing lights was a BOAT driving down the street! Then he clarified: it was a police vehicle with a boat on a trailer behind it. OOOOOh. I got it. That's when we realized they were headed towards the reservoir.

After twenty minutes and several more emergency vehicles went by, we decided to go see what was going on. When we got to the boat launch area there were probably at least a dozen if not fifteen vehicles with flashing lights. There were also several other cars, and a decent number of people milling around. We rolled down the window and asked what was going on. "Car in the water!" was the answer.

We pulled off to the side and joined the milling around people (well out of the way of the bajillion rescue people who were doing their jobs, no fear) and watched for a while as at least one, possibly two boats with search lights made their way slowly around in the water. There was a pickup truck in the water. Many of us agreed, in our idle talking, that the way the boat launch was positioned was just asking for a car to be driven into it: it's at a 90 degree angle in the road, so if you don't make a very hard left, you end up in the lake.

The end of the bed and the very top of the roof of the cab were all that were above the water line. There was a group of EMTs with a stretcher standing near an ambulance, and they were using the winch on one of the firetrucks (maybe?) to get the truck close enough to the shore so that the tow truck could take over. There didn't seem to be any frenzied rescue activity around the cab of the truck, so we figured probably there was nobody in there. There were rescue workers in scuba gear walking around.

They finally got the pickup close enough that the flatbed tow truck could start winching it up. We watched as they did this in stages; water was pouring out from under the tailgate and they had to go slowly or they'd be hauling out a hell of a lot more weight in water than was necessary.

Then there was a not-right sound and the truck lurched a bit and stopped making progress onto the tow truck. A moment later everyone was backing away very pointedly, while the folks with the stretcher sprang into action, getting blankets ready on the stretcher and moving it down toward the water. They helped a guy onto it who was holding a white cloth to his mouth. They put him in one of the ambulances and took him away.

We stayed a bit longer and the story we got in bits and pieces from people who knew anything at all was that the guy had been hit by something when the pulley broke while they were winching the truck onto the flatbed. We also heard that there was nobody in the truck, and that they'd found/caught the people from the truck somewhere else. Since the truck's doors were closed it made me wonder if they'd stolen the truck and then driven it into the reservoir with a rock on the accelerator or something. When they got the truck out of the water far enough to open the door, a bunch of the emergency crew were looking in, taking official photos, but also laughing and talking about something. One of the people we were talking to was a local reporter and she took down my name for some reason. Not that my story "we saw the ambulances and police going down the road and came over to see what was going on" was interesting enough stuff to put in an article, but whatever. Hehe.

The camera on Dan's phone is even worse than mine, plus it was dark, but this is the truck in the water:



Update: news article here--turns out they did end up quoting me! Bahaha.

First off, the party was a lot of fun. A ton of people came, and almost everyone was in costume. We wore the same thing we did last year (except I didn't wear the gloves or the extremely silly crown.) The party was mostly in and around a barn, and the people who live there have two horses. So every once in a while, this huge horse head would come in the window, amid cobwebs and other macabre decor, to snag some hay or just to check out what was happening. It was rather hilarious.

They had a truck with a flat bed and then an additional trailer behind that, which were piled with bales of hay. Dan estimates that there were about 40 people on the hayride, and several more walking behind. We rode (I was wearing 5" stiletto-heel boots.) We'd barely gone halfway down the (admittedly long) driveway when a "body" comes flying down on a zip line from out of some trees, and goes right over the truck. Then we passed a guy hacking into another guy with an axe or something--I didn't have a good view of that one. At other points on the ride, we came across other scenes that were set up. In front of one house was a kid who looked about Dominic's age, tied to a slab. As we approached, a guy with a chainsaw came over and cut off his legs. It was a pretty good effect, with spraying blood and everything. At another point, we came across a curiously abandoned car with the lights on and the radio playing. As we stopped alongside, the radio started playing "Thriller" and about 4 zombies came staggering out of the woods and started doing the Thriller dance. There were several more, but probably the best after that was when some guys in masks came out of the woods and grabbed a little girl off of the hayride. She started screaming--this blood-curdling scream--and they carried her into the yard and pulled off her [kind of obviously fake] arms. I about laughed my butt off. Trailing us for some of the way was an alien with a huge head driving a golf cart.

After the hayride was over, the kids all went trick or treating more or less en masse, while the rest of us headed back to the barn. The music was on, a few people danced, and we got to meet a lot of our neighbors--who all seem really nice. Dan ran home and got some torches and my fire poi and we went around to the side of the barn to fuel and light them. We played around with those for a little while and people clapped. We both juggled the torches (though I'd have done better if I hadn't already had a few glasses of wine) and I spun my poi without catching my hair on fire. Woohoo! The neighbors said we'll fit right in.

Monday I took Dominic to the orthodontist. He'd gotten x-rays and had molds made and so on last time and now we were there to find out what his treatment plan would be, and what it would cost (by the way, if you can possibly avoid it, do not move to a new state in the middle of having braces. Trust me on this.) He said it will be another 12-15 months and just over $1900. Holy crap. We'd already paid the first guy a big deposit and been making monthly payments for well over a year. We were not that far from paying it off. ARG!

Next, I went to the hospital to get my first IV iron infusion and a B12 shot. The doctor also had me get a flu shot. By mid-evening, the flu shot was kicking my ass. I felt sore all over, like I'd worked out the day before, but without the benefit of knowing that you earned that pain with some exercise. By bedtime, I had chills so bad I was shaking, even in bed under the electric blanket. Shaking tensed up my muscles, and tensing my muscles made the aches scream. So I was fighting between trying to relax so it didn't hurt so much, and shivering to try to warm up. I ended up crying a little bit, actually. I'm such a baby.

I felt a bit better on Tuesday, though still ill. I went to the new psychiatrist that my doctor referred me to, and he put me on Zyprexa in addition to what I'm taking now. Once we stabilize out my brain's habit of racing around and keeping me up at night, he may try switching my Wellbutrin to something else and maybe I'll get my short term memory back!

Nothing too exciting happened yesterday or today. I feel worn out and lethargic, but it might be lingering effects from the flu shot, combined with the overall tiredness I always have.

I miss my friends in Cleveland. And my friends in Atlanta. And my friends around DC. Still waiting to make some new friends here. Hopefully the party on Saturday will have helped. I got some email addresses. It's a start.

We're going to a block party tonight. It should be nice to meet some of our new neighbors. Moving to a new state, which I've done three times now in the last 5 years, means starting over from scratch on knowing locals. This time, I don't have school to put me face to face with people, either. Should be good.

So I went to the doctor today to discuss the results of my lab work. She had me tested for a bunch of things, mostly iron and various vitamins. It wasn't pretty. Her exact words were "I don't understand how you are still able to function." She also said "the tiredness must be killing you." She said that my iron count should be at least 80, taking into account that I'm a vegetarian, but mine was 17. Vitamin B-12 should be between 200-946 according to the lab report, but mine is 168. Vitamin D should be above 30; mine is 11. She actually left the room to make me an appointment for immediately after I left the office to go to the hospital, get the iron checked once more, and then see a hematologist there. She was recommending a blood transfusion, but said the other possibility was intravenous iron treatments. She also wants me to start getting a B-12 shot, and is giving me prescription strength vitamin D supplements.

I left the doctor's office and went to the hospital (the same one where Dan works, incidentally) and had the blood drawn. It was labeled "STAT" with instructions to phone the results to the hematologist, and she wrote the hematologist's cell phone number on the lab order. After they took the blood I went to the hematology/oncology place at the hospital to see the doctor there. He said he was on the fence about the transfusion vs the intravenous iron, and left it up to me. Since I have O- blood and I know that's valuable, and there is always a blood shortage, I figured I've lived feeling like this for several years already, a few more weeks is not worth using blood that could be saving someone's life. I get my first of five IV iron treatments on Monday, along with my B-12 shot. Just before I left, Dan showed up. He was getting off of his shift and walked over to see how I was doing. He chatted with the doctor for a few minutes, then drove me to my car (it was raining and he gets to park closer to the hospital, being a doctor, than I do, being a mere visitor).

Tuesday I will see the new psychiatrist to see what he thinks about my medication situation. Maybe we can find something that still makes me feel human like the Wellbutrin does, but without the really irritating memory loss issues, and that also addresses the mood stabilizing part of being bipolar. Wellbutrin is just an antidepressant, so it doesn't treat the other half of my problem. The sleep study pretty much flat out concluded that the reason I can't sleep (and it definitely concluded that I don't sleep for shit) is because of a "mental disorder"--basically, my bipolar brain won't turn off and let me sleep.

Now that I have insurance and can actually go to doctors and have tests and get treatment and medications, maybe I can finally straighten this stuff out and maybe I won't be exhausted all the time (from both severe anemia and lack of sleep)... I can't even imagine what that would feel like. I don't remember not feeling exhausted.

For blood nerds:
RBC: 3.87 (4.0-5.2 norm)
HGB: 9.7 (12-16 norm)
HCT: 29.7% (36-48% norm)
IRON: 17 (37-145 norm)

Today I had an interview at the community center. They currently offer art classes for 2-4 year olds and for elementary school kids (through 5th grade) but that's it. They were looking to offer some classes for older kids and adults. The art teacher at Dominic's school gave me the tip on this, by the way. So anyway, starting in January they're going to offer painting classes taught by me! There will be two adult oil painting classes, one in the middle of the day and one in the evening (she said that those are totally different demographics--people at home all day trying to find things to do vs people who want to do things and have to fit them in after work) and an after school class for middle & high school kids that will cover the basic principals of design, composition, and basic drawing, finishing with the basics of oil painting. The classes are all once a week for 2 hours, for 8 weeks.

We're setting the minimum class size at 4 and the max size at 12. Hopefully we'll get the minimum 4! This should be fun :)

I swear, I'm sleeping worse than ever. My hot flashes are getting worse, and so in addition to my already poor sleep, I'm now waking up even more because I'm hot and sweaty and can't get comfortable to save my life. We keep our house at 64°, so just throwing off the covers in the night when you're sweaty doesn't work, because then almost instantly you're too cold... so instead I find myself scooting all over the bed trying to find a cool spot in the sheets. I trade out between several pillows to keep a cool pillow under my head and another between my knees. I feel like I sleep for 10 minutes, then thrash around for 15 minutes, then slowly doze off for 10 minutes, sleep for 10, then wake up and thrash around again. ARG! I spent 12 hours in bed last night. TWELVE HOURS. I feel like I got no sleep. Mind you, I read almost an entire book in the process of trying to fall asleep, and I woke up all the time, and it took me a while after waking up for the last time to grudgingly admit that I wasn't going to fall back asleep and drag my ass into the shower. Ugh.

( TMI details after the cut )

The forecast in the upcoming days is for all-day rain. There was a link right under this that said "rainy day fun" so I clicked on it. Here are my favorites (word for word):

Fun Things To Do On a Rainy Day...

Paint a picture of a rainbow.
# True or False: A rainbow has 6 colors.
If you said false, you are correct! A rainbow is made up of a whole continuum of colors.

Have an indoor picnic.
Throw a blanket on the floor and break out the sandwiches and cheese.

Jump over mud puddles.

Play a rainfall trivia game.
See who can guess the average number of inches of precipitation that Seattle, Washington gets for each month of the year. Use our Averages & Records to find the answers.
Continue playing with other cities in the U.S.

Act out a play.

Do a rain dance.

Make a list of all the things that make you smile, laugh, and cry.
# Things that make me smile: Sunshine and rain at the same time; Pizza for breakfast; Waking up on a Friday.
# Things that make me laugh: Tickling my feet; The dog licking my face.
# Things that make me cry: Sad movies, like Old Yeller; Dropping a bowling ball on my foot.
Compare lists with other family members.

Make a fort out of the kitchen table.
# Cover the table with a sheet and get out the flashlights.

Gosh. What fun ideas :X

So today Dominic and I went to the bank today. I needed to change the name on my account (now that I finally have ID with my married name) and we needed to open an account for Dominic. He had a savings account in Ohio, but that bank has no branches in Massachusetts. I ended up opening a business checking account for myself as well, since we'd talked about how it would make taxes easier and stuff.

The whole bank escapade lasted nearly 4 hours. Part of this was because the woman was having computer problems, and part was because she was a bit chatty... but anyway, when it came time to open the account for Dominic, the lady asked how old he was (14) and then recommended a student checking account/savings account combo. With a debit card. This took me by surprise, but I got to thinking... it would make things a lot easier. Not the checks so much, but the debit card... access to the ATM... I decided to go for it. This will make deposits sooo much easier (no more having to take him to the bank during bank hours, etc). It will also make it easier for him to buy things when he wants to.

So anyway, yeah. My son now has his own checking account and a debit card. Mind you, He won't have access to either of those things without my supervision. He hasn't shown himself to be responsible enough for that. But even so. How am I old enough to have a kid with a debit card?!

Looking back on it, though... I was 16 when I got my first checking account, I think. Wow.

Anyway, by the time we were getting to the end of all of that, Dan called to say he was on his way home. The bank had closed at 4, but we were still there at almost 6:30... Dan had opened two checking accounts back when he first got to the area this summer with the intention of adding me to one of them for us to use as a joint account for all of our shared expenses. The lady who was helping us open the accounts said just to have him stop by on his way home and we could do it while were were doing everything else. So Dan gets there and we let him in the locked doors and get me added to the account, blah blah. We finally got home around 7pm. Crazy.

Wow. So today Dan and I finally found time to go to the RMV (not the DMV, like normal states, this is the Registry of Motor Vehicles) to register our cars and get our Massachusetts driver's licenses. This will make the 5th state I've done this in and it's the worst. It cost the two of us nearly $500 total and we still have to go pay for inspections for our cars (we have 7 days to do this). If we were getting licenses for the first time, it costs $50. But since we're from out of state, with out of state licenses, it's $100. Wtf. Then plates and registration was another $125 each and it just keeps adding up!

Oh, and I had to fill out a form about my car since I bought it out of state. The form has a space for the name and address of who I bought it from. Like I can remember that! It was my realtor's kid's girlfriend's grandmother! I met her several years ago at a bank in downtown Atlanta, did the deal, and never saw her again. I don't remember her name and I never knew her address. I told the people this and they said "it has to be filled out." I said, "um... but with what? I have no way of getting that information..." (the current title--the Ohio one--just says that that info isn't available on the previous title--the original Georgia one from when I bought it). The lady said, and I quote: "be creative." So she basically told me to make something up. Then I had to sign the bottom, right after a paragraph where it says that my signature swears that all of the above information is totally accurate. *facepalm*

That said, my new license plate starts with '6' and ends with '9' and has "GR" in the middle. Grrrrrrr! 69!

Huge, half-dollar sized flakes, too! It's been snowing since about 3:30pm. A couple of days ago we had a short period of half-assed rain+snow mix, but this is just serious 100% SNOW. I love it! :D :D :D How the hell did I survive 25 years in southern Arizona!? I would DIE if I had to live in that again.

So looking at my results--which I've done a lot of today--the number that stands out to me the most is the "sleep efficiency" number: 39%. To make this easy to understand, this is the percentage of time that I'm actually asleep from when the lights are out until I "wake up" in the morning. I don't turn the lights out until I've read/tv'd/whatever'd myself to the state of feeling like I could fall asleep any second. (Otherwise, my brain just pops back on and starts going 50 directions at once and before you know it I'm wide awake again.)--and as it turns out, "any second" actually means "almost half an hour." I should also mention that my sleep study was done with my "normal sleeping conditions"...meaning that these are my results on my sleeping medication. If I hadn't taken the pills, I doubt I'd have fallen asleep at all by the time the technician's shift was over and it was time to go home.

Ok, so like I was saying: easy to understand. Percentages and multiples of 10 work so nicely together, so let's go with that. What my results mean is that if I appear to be sleeping for 10 hours--that is, I'm in bed, eyes closed, not doing anything else, for 10 hours--then I'm actually asleep for 3 hours, 54 minutes. So if I appear to get the "normal" amount of 8 hours of sleep, I am actually asleep for only 3 hours, 7 minutes. Is it any wonder that I'm always tired? Is it any wonder that I always feel like I'm not done when I finally concede that I'm not going to sleep any more and drag myself out of bed?

All my life I've dealt with people who try to make me feel like I'm lazy or something for sleeping until noon. They don't realize that I'm lucky if I fell asleep by 3 or 4am, rather than, say, dawn, and (now that I have SCIENCE behind me) can say that I've probably gotten 3 or fewer hours of sleep.

For reference, a "normal" sleep efficiency number during a sleep study is 85-90%. It is estimated that at home most people probably average 90-95%, but that the strange conditions of the sleep study make them sleep a little less well. I didn't really feel that I slept all that differently from how I do at home, except that I had to get up earlier than I'd have liked to (after only 134 minutes of actual sleep, given that I arrived at 8pm, had the lights out by 12:30am, and was woken up at 6:30am).

I wish that I had been diagnosed with sleep apnea. It runs in my family--my dad has it, for example. I wish I had it because then I could just get one of those machines and I'd be all set. Instead, my diagnosis is "insomnia due to mental disorder" which is pretty much what I've always said it was: I can't sleep because my bipolar brain doesn't let me sleep. I have an appointment for November 3 to see a psychiatrist that my doctor recommended, and it is my doctor's hope that altering my bipolar treatment medication may help with the insomnia.

This scares me, because the Wellbutrin is the best medication I've ever had. I never felt "normal" before, emotionally. I actually feel like a coping adult on this drug. It does have side effects, such as memory loss, that bother me... and it can cause insomnia (which I had before anyway, so it may make it worse) but I am terrified to go off of it for fear of turning into the person I used to be. The me that isn't me. The me that I watched, helplessly from the backseat, as she sabotaged my life. I hope that either adding a medication or changing to a different yet still-as-effective medication will be beneficial... but the whole idea of ceasing the Wellbutrin feels like taking my safety blankie away. We'll see what the doctor says on the 3rd. I'm both scared and excited at the same time.

The optimist in me hopes that pharmocological leaps and strides have been made since 2001 when I first started taking Wellbutrin, and that I'll not only feel just as sane, but be able to sleep--finally--and not feel like a senile old lady who can't remember what she ate for breakfast yesterday. The pessimist in me hopes that my family can withstand "psychopathic Opal" during a series of trials with new medications that aren't as effective :X

It would be nice to feel well rested. It is a feeling I've had (and cherished) maybe only a dozen times in the last decade.

I saw a great quote in a sig today: "Some people are like Slinkies... Not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs."

Teehee!

Total sleep time: 134 minutes (out of 343.5 minutes in bed) (that's 2 hrs, 14 minutes of sleep for those who, like me, don't like to do math)
Sleep efficiency: 39% (normal is 85-90%)
Sleep onset latency: 28.5 minutes (how long after the lights were out--i.e. after I stopped reading my book--until I fell asleep)
REM latency: 138.5 minutes
Arousal index (hush! You have a dirty mind!): 15.6 per hour
Awakenings: 35 (mostly spontaneous)
Sleep architecture (sleep stages):
N1: 35 minutes/26%, (normal is 4-5%)
N2: 76 minutes/57%, (normal is 45-55%)
N3: 13 minutes/9%, (normal is 16-21%)
REM: 10 minutes/7%, (normal is 20-25%)
Total REM episodes: 2

(From Wikipedia: Sleep proceeds in cycles of REM and NREM, the order normally being N1 → N2 → N3 → N2 → REM. There is a greater amount of deep sleep (stage N3) early in the night, while the proportion of REM sleep increases later in the night and just before natural awakening.)

Apnea/Hypopnea Index: 6 (REM) 0 (NREM) .4 (Total)
Lowest oxyhemoglobin saturation: 93% (that's normal)
Sleep position: left side: 0%, right side: 65.8%, back: 34.2%, stomach: 0%
Periodic limb movements: 6

Comments include:
"Sleep architecture was abnormal. Sleep onset latency was delayed at 28.5 minutes. Stage R latency was also delayed at 138.5 minutes and stage R and stage N3 of sleep were reduced."

Final diagnosis (word for word, I swear):
"Insomnia due to mental disorder."

Basically, I can't sleep because I'm bipolar, and my brain won't let me, which is what I've always said it was. My doctor had me make an appointment with a psychiatrist upstairs from her in the hopes that maybe a different medication (change or addition) would help.