Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Updates... YouTube, Highway 17 Music, & Apnea

Yesterday I had my first "featured" video on YouTube. A feature is when the YouTube staff chooses one of your videos to run on the front page of the site. With the thousands of videos posted every day, it's pretty much of an honor to be chosen, but it's hard to say what their criteria are.

I've done some videos there that I'm kind of proud of, and that I thought had a chance to be featured. No such luck.

The video of mine that they chose, in contrast, was a quickly thrown together joke. A Three Hour Tour - The Professor's Story is a Gilligan's Island parody in response to another 'Tuber's video. The last thing I would have expected them to feature.

And yet, it's not had over 112,000 views in the last 30 hours or so, and has increased my subscriber list from just over 240 to just under 300 (and still rising).

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Update two has to do with my Highway 17 Music site. About a month ago I redesigned it as a guitar oriented blog, with lessons, tips, and resources for aspiring guitarists. I'm including a lot of videos and articles from other sources (with permission) for the expertise.

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The results from my polysomnogram (overnight sleep study) are in...

The official diagnosis is that I have "severe obstructive sleep apnea." During my night hooked up to all the monitors I stopped breathing completely 228 times, and "nearly stopped" another 65 times, for 42.4 "disturbances" per hour, during which my blood oxygen levels fell as low as 74.5%.

Another problem is that even the sleep I did get, was not "the right kind." I spent 75.1% of my sleep in stages one and two (should be about 55%), 11.4% in stages three and four (should be about 25%), and only 13.5% in REM, or the deepest dream sleep (should be 20%).

I go in again next Monday for another overnight, this time to test the C-PAP - a machine and mask that essentially pumps air, forcing me to keep breathing. It turns out that the apnea may actually be contributing to some of my other complaints, such as reflux and tinnitus.

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