Instructions and a demonstration at the oxygen store about how to use a contraption to test my breathing during sleep were simple. Put the rubber watch on your non-dominate hand, your index finger in the rubber finger, then push the button on the watch atbedtime, and turn it off the next morning.

So simple that I almost didn’t read the directions, but was glad I did because there was a loophole. It only required four hours of sleep instead of all night.

When my bladder woke me up at five o’clock I pushed the off button and took the watch/finger off, went to the bathroom, then back to sleep.

I’d put that test off, and felt so relieved after I took the gadget back to the store that afternoon, and did some Christmas shopping.

I’d just pulled out of my favorite sandwich drive-thru, and was headed home when I got a call from the oxygen store.

“There was only an hour on your test,” the gal told me.

“What! But ...”

“That’s not enough to give the doctor the needed information.”

I had been so stressed out about the test that I’d dug around and found a 2016 prescription of sleeping pills and took half of one so I’d sleep. That probably caused the problem.

On the way home I picked up another test kit, went through the drill that night, and took it back the next morning. Yes, I woke up once during the night and found out why the apparatus is on your non-dominant hand, but didn’t take it off then.

That reminds me of a urine test for a physical years ago.

There was a small passthrough door next to the toilet for you to put your tiny filled cup into. Right after I put the cup in and shut the door I saw the printed instructions on the wall: “Be sure to put your name on the cup.”

I quickly opened the door.

It was gone.

I wrote my name on another cup, managed to produce enough to test, then went back to the waiting room.

When they called my name the nurse said, “Oh, you’re the Two Cup Lady. We all wondered what you’d look like.”

Medical tests aren’t always that embarrassing, but are necessary if we want to stay on the top of the grass, as my late husband used to say.

I thought when I quit smoking 30 years ago that it would help me stay up here, and apparently it has, but getting pneumonia from a surgical test four years ago didn’t help.

Now I’ve learned up close and personal what COPD stands for, and still await results from that sleep test to see if there is a need for oxygen at night. If I do, I hope the instructions are on the heel of a boot, and that I read them very carefully.