My grandma and your grandma, sitting by the fire...

Sorry about the aborted blog earlier, had a user error trying to post a pic.  Or something.  Either way, thats not one of my better entries.  Probably.

Had an interesting last few months.  Spent the first half of last year trying to lose weight but had pretty much no luck.  Then work got stressful, and being that I'm somewhat of a "food as a crutch" kind of guy that didn't help things.  So work got insane (thats a whole other blog) and the stress levels mounted along with the 70+ hour weeks.  It got to a point in late October that I woke up in the middle of the night having difficulty breathing.  It became so bad I had to call 911 and have an ambulance take me to the ER.  According to the doc there (who wanted to admit me to run tests) I had a stress-induced apnea attack.  Turns out I was but the first of several of us at work to take ambulance rides because of stress but like I said, another time for that.

So I'd had some degree of sleep apnea for going on roughly 10 years.  Over the past few years it got progressively worse and I've had several of what I would describe as near-death experiences.  After this trip to the ER, however, things really ramped up.  I could no longer sleep on my back.  I had to put couch cushions behind me so I would stay on my side.  Then it got to where I couldn't sleep lying down or there'd be consequences.  Consequences like waking up not breathing and not thinking I was going to be able to start again.  So I wound up sleeping on the couch in a semi-sitting position, but even that got bad.  I was waking up as many as 8 times a night just to go to the bathroom.  So when sitting sleeping up still resulted in me waking up not breathing, I took a hint and went to the doctor.

The earliest I could get in was November 10th so I took a sick day (didn't hurt MW2 came out that day) so I went and saw the guy, and he referred me to a pulmonary specialist.  In the meantime he had me go back the next day for some blood work.

Ah, here's something else I should mention on top of the apnea thing.  I had been falling asleep at inappropriate times (such as during meetings with my boss or driving my car) for the past several years, and this too was getting out of hand.  There was nothing I could do about it, never saw it coming, it just hit me.  And it was trippy too because I'd kind of be awake but would begin to dream at the same time so reality would blend with my subconscious...yeah, weird.  I figured this was because of the apnea and me not really sleeping well.

Ok, so I go see the doc and he orders the bloodwork.  I get the results the next week and it turns out I have hypothyroidism.  That is where your thyroid is underperforming like a Cubs centerfielder (only making less money).  That was the main culprit behind my falling asleep like I was and a co-conspirator behind my weight problem.  He hooked me up with some synthroid for that (along with some allopurinol for the gout I was running into) and within a week I felt loads better.  Within 2 weeks I was no longer dozing off uncontrollably, and I was able to focus a lot better in general. 

So then I have my pulmonary appointment in early December.  I go in and take this weird breathing test and the guy comes in and tells me I need to go for a sleep study as soon as possible.  So I asked if they could call the place and set it up, and they did that for the next night.  That was something else.  All these wires and electrodes strapped and pasted all over your body...and then you have to go to sleep like that.  Plus if you had to go to the bathroom they took all the wires and hooked them into this portable box you took with you to the can.  Bonus part was if you moved it at all your head was yanked straight back...lets just say I'm glad I wasn't the poor bastard cleaning that bathroom.

So after 4 hours of sleeping without any kind of breathing aid the tech comes in with a c-pap machine, which is basically that breathing machine that has the mask and all that.  We went through a few masks and then the idea was for me to sleep with the mask AND all that shit strapped to me.  Yeah...I figured there'd be no way I was ever going to be able tozzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....out like a light.  She woke me up 3 hours later and I have to say that was the best sleep I'd had in years.  I felt great the whole day.

So I get a call the next week with the results of my study.  Remember how I mentioned I could no longer sleep lying down and was struggling to sleep even sitting up?  I was averaging 94 events an hour.  AN HOUR.  Plus my blood oxygen dropped by 50% when I fell asleep just on my own without the machine.  After they gave me the machine?  I was averaging 3 events an hour (0-5 is acceptable) and my blood ox went back up to 92%.  In a nutshell, if I hadn't taken care of this I was going to die soon. 

I wound up with a medical supply place that comes to your home, the guy came out and hooked everything up.  Gotta love HMO.  The machine doesn't make a sound and works like a charm.  The mask was a little claustrophobic at first but I got used to it within a few days.  The best part is I can actually get quality REM sleep now (for the first time in years) and I'm getting my thyroid back under control.  When I went to my doc for a followup last month I was down almost 10 pounds, and I'd say I'm probably down close to another 10 since then.

The moral of this story is  that if you actually bothered to read all of this and you see yourself or someone you know in this description of the sleep apnea symptoms, get it checked out immediately.  This shit can kill you...ask Reggie White.