Sleep. It's Not Always Easy

Here it is, after midnight again, and I'm starting another post.  I should know better.  This is not in keeping with my 'health regimen'.    I had one of those days again.  Ever have one?  Nothing I set out to do was accomplished and what I did do was incomplete.  Oh, well, everybody is entitled to an off-day now and again.  I guess if I was gainfully employed and had a boss, I'd have been in the office getting a talking-to.  It's a good thing I'm not employed.

 Part of the culprit has been my sleep apnea issue again.  Sometimes me and the Machine don't quite get along.  Every now and again, I have more apneas than usual.  (For those wondering what an apnea is, it's a cessation of breathing, either due to snoring or simply no effort to breathe.) You'd think that losing weight would make sleep apnea a thing of the past, but well, it doesn't always work that way.  In other words, you don't have to be obese to have sleep apnea.  Nope.  You can be a Skinny-Minnie and still be a Hose Head. 

My father was a notorious snorer, and wasn't an overweight man.  I remember as a kid listening to his raucous snoring all the way upstairs in my bedroom.  It was Loud. 

"Sssssssnnnnnnoooooooorrrrrkkkkkk, snooooorrrrrrrkkkkkk, snoooooooooorrrrrrkkkkkk.........," on and on......over and over until all of a sudden........nothing. 

 Silence. 

Dead silence, which was deafening. 

And then suddenly, "Ah...hhhh....hhhhh," a massive gasping and choking effort for oxygen would occur.  It was as if his head had been held underwater and he was finally coming up for air, which was exactly what he was doing.  Soon the snores would resume, only to go back into holding his breath in a few minutes until his brain roused him enough to fight for air again.  Sound restful? 

Not.

So, yes, I come from a genetic background of sleep apnea, but whether genetics play a part in becoming a sleep apnea patient or not, I'm not sure.  But I know I was in denial at first; I didn't think I snored at all.  Denial faded when I tape-recorded my sleep for a few nights and was embarrassed to hear the truth and fear crept in when I heard  how many times I stopped snoring.  Most of the time I sounded like I was being strangled, and no, Carl wasn't to blame.

When I went in for a sleep study two years ago, they found I had mild sleep apnea, with about seven 'events' an hour of failure to breathe normally.  But my oxygen saturation levels were dipping quite low, which is not a Good Thing.  The doctor explained the obstructive apneas themselves were like having someone come into the bedroom seven times an hour and hold a pillow over my face until I woke up.  And for some reason, my unobstructed breathing tended to be quite shallow at times which was causing my oxygen levels to drop. 

No wonder I was waking up with headaches every morning.  Full-blown, miserable, day-long headaches.  And no wonder I was trudging to the bathroom up to three and four times a night;  when the airway is blocked or partially blocked as it is during an apnea event, the body must exert more effort to pull air into the lungs, causing a change in pressure and more blood to flow toward the heart. The heart interprets this increased blood flow as an alert that there's too much fluid in the system. It then sends a signal to the kidneys via a hormone which in turn, produce urine as a way to dump the fluid.  And you find yourself roused from your uneasy sleep to head to the restroom, only to repeat the performance in an hour or two.  For me, this went on for decades.

With so many trips to the bathroom and waking up over and over again, there is no restful, restorative sleep.   The body and mind need time to rest and repair the wear and tear of living.  I would wake up in the morning and be so stiff and sore, oh, it was no fun. 

I rarely, if ever, had any dreams at night.  It wasn't until I became used to being a hosehead that one morning I woke up and could recall a fantastic dream I'd just had (in color!)   It was then I knew for certain the CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) machine was working wonders.  And the first night I went to bed and didn't wake up for six hours was another milestone.  Wow, I never woke up once all night long.  I can't tell you what it feels like to have restorative sleep after years of being denied. Truly life-changing.

So, what's my problem now?  Oh, once in awhile life weighs heavy on my mind and sleep is elusive.  Though I know I need rest desperately, being a hosehead has it's ups and downs, too.  Strapping on the face mask and getting all the seals seated so no air is escaping and blowing in your eyes or making rude, farting noises can be an adventure all its own.  You can get the straps on straight and everything seems good, only to turn on the air pressure and find you have a 'tickle' of a small piece of fuzz or a stray hair or what have you that you can't remove until you take off the mask and start over.   Rubbing my face all over before reapplying the mask usually does the trick.  Put the mask back on, rearrange the hose and fix the leaks and try to fall asleep. 

'Try' being the operative word.  If my mind is restless, I find the noise coming from the machine itself to be very annoying, even though I have a very quiet machine.  Every time I breathe in, the machine resonates the sound.  No, it's not as bad as Darth Vader, but there is a definite inhale/exhale noise.  Though it's much quieter than my riotous snoring used to be (poor Carl, how did he sleep through all of that racket??) it still mimics the sound of a life support machine somewhat.  I shouldn't complain, since for me, it is a form of life support I truly need. It's just when I'm willing myself to fall asleep it's hard to not hear my own breathing.  It keeps me awake.  Ok, I'm weird.  I know.

   Every now and then, sleep can be elusive and even after drifting off,  I find myself awake several times a night which is the way things have been going this week.  My CPAP machine is quite sophisticated and I can tell at a glance how my sleep quality has been by hitting a button.  I'd like to see Zero Apneas listed, but that's never happened.  Usually it's around 1.2 or so, but lately, 3.8 has been popping up.  That's not cool.  Anything over 3.0 and I'm really, really tired the next day.  I'll have to do some reading on why things are acting up a little, there's a great website devoted just to sleep apnea patients and they are very, very helpful.  I can post the data from my machine and find the help I need.  I'm not in this alone.

I'm still in better shape than if I didn't have the machine to contend with, and for that, I'm thankful.  Everything has its ups and downs.  This too shall pass.  CPAP masks are far from glamorous, no one ever said they were.  Yeah, I wake up in the morning with the indentations of my mask embedded in my face, but I wake up which is no small feat.  Sleep apnea can be fatal if left untreated.  And despite having less than stellar results overnight, I'm so much more refreshed, even if I did have a rough night.  Simply not having headaches every single day of my life is a huge blessing. 

There.  I've done got that out of my system.  Now I think I can sleep.  Tomorrow is another day.  From this Hosehead to all of you........
 

Good Night!