It's for the greater good…
I am tired.
Have been since the ’80’s.
Where to start? Well, the beginning would be nice, but trying to decide where to put the beginning is hard.
I was born in 1973…no, too far. Although, part of the story goes back to my maternal grandfather, but I’ll just sprinkle parts of that in as needed…like salt. Season to taste. What does this story taste like?
At the moment, this story tastes like insomnia and braces. Let me begin…
I have a receded chin. No big deal. My family (mainly Dad) has, for a very long while, referred to my lack of chin as plural chins, since when one does not posess a strong chiseled jaw, all the body fabric that would have housed said jaw just kind of hangs out down there.
I say no big deal because I know it’s not an unusual thing, not because I never wished it was different. Actually, it used to be slightly different.
When I was 13 I got braces. I think I was 13. I’m trying to imagine my Freshman yearbook picture and I cannot. At last! My high school memories are fading (Sometimes I think my brain houses the most annoying trivia that no one else seems to remember). Anyhow, back to the braces…
I have pictures of my face pre-tinsel, taken by Jock Sturges when I was in ballet. I had a chin. One chin. Yes, I weighed nothing, but I definitely had a stronger jawline. What happened? Braces happened. I had 2 teeth pulled and my teeth moved backwards to eliminate my buck-toothed overbite, and somewhere around age 14 I became the chinless, sleepless one. Or, if you are my family, I became the multi-chinned lazy one.
I slept through the SAT’s. Not THROUGH through. I answered some questions. I just couldn’t stay awake to finish most of the sections, so towards the end of each one my scantron involved much unwanted pencil marks and some drool. This happened all 3 times I took them.
I was a lazy high school teenager. Put me in a car, plane, bed, chair…you name it, I could nap there. I was lazy before that. I have always been tired, but who isn’t? When I was in summer camp (CYO Camp Armstrong), I remember finishing my lunch, putting my head down, and being awakened later by my counselor - in the middle of the dining hall. Summer camp dining hall is a zoo. It’s loud and bright and abnoxious. I slept through it.
Fast forward a couple decades to about 2001. I’m still tired. If anything, I’m more tired. Self diagnosis: Lazy. Insomnia has plagued me all of my adult life, I just figure I’m tired because I don’t sleep well. So I start with Ambien. Since my insurance company won’t cover more than 14 pills a month, I try other meds. Trazadone. Elavil. Sonata. You name it, I probably tried it. I also tried exercising until I dropped, but no matter what I did, I always seemed to wake up 2 hours later, then every 20 minutes for the rest of the night.
It is a well known fact in my family that I am a violent sleeper. Mom used to say I did ballet in my sleep (that means I kicked). Over the years I have figured out that I am a little bit of a snorer as well, though nothing house-shaking, and much of the time, I would wake up mid-snort and think to myself “Oh man, it would suck if I was a snorer! Good thing I always seem to wake myself up. Maybe I’ll train myself out of it.” I thought that I woke myself up because of the noise. I was wrong.
Come to find out, under a year ago, that I have Abstructive Sleep Apnea. Got the Stanford sleep study and all that, and according to CG (my awesome doctor), I’ve had this all my life. I also have a deviated septum…which I really don’t know much about except that if I push my finger against the tip of my nose and make a snout, I can breathe better and look like a pig at the same time. It’s fun.
According to my sleep study, I stop breathing on average 38 times AN HOUR. My blood oxygen level dips a little, and 15-30 second later I wake up to breathe.
That being established, I am going to take a break and maybe catch a few zzz’s. It’s 3:45am, and I ripped the CPAP mask off my face about an hour ago after going to bed around 12:30.
Sleep. Breathe. Sleep. Breathe. I dislike that I have to choose one over the other.
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