Carol Waldemayer is breathing and sleeping a lot easier these days. The Elizabethtown resident was diagnosed with sleep apnea roughly three years ago and has been receiving treatment ever since, the benefits of which have transformed her life for the better.
Waldemayer, a patient advocate at HMH, sought treatment after she woke up numerous times in the middle of the night gasping for breath. Other nights, she snored so loud she interrupted her own slumber.
Waldemayer quickly realized a pattern had formed and something was wrong.
“After about six times, I went to the doctor,” she said.
Through an evaluation from a nurse practitioner, she was recommended for a sleep study evaluation at Hardin Memorial Hospital’s Sleep Center. During the study, the center’s staff monitors everything from brain to muscle movement to determine what type of condition a patient is suffering from. In Waldemayer’s case, they found she stopped breathing more than 100 times during a roughly eight-hour period and her legs moved during the first four hours of the study.
