Tired (Five Minute Friday)

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Tired, Kate says. Let me tell you about being tired. I have sleep apnea. So does my husband. I recognized it in him first and he scared me half to death when after years of hearing him snore almost constantly during our marriage, I realized he would stop snoring for long periods of time. I used a small cassette recorder to tape him. When I played it for him during the next day, I got so mad because he wasn’t taking it seriously. All he said was, “Cool! I didn’t know I could hold my breath that long.” I made him talk to the doctor and of course, he had to do a sleep study. He was apparently one of the worst cases they had seen. He was fitted for a Bi-Pap machine that night during the first sleep study because he was waking up 85 times an hour. Think about that for a minute. He was waking up eighty-five times in sixty minutes. No wonder he couldn’t stay awake long enough to watch a tv show! Getting the sleep machine changed both our lives, for the better.

A year or two later, I woke up with my uvula swollen and dangling down touching my tongue and gagging me. Something is not right about that, I thought. So I went to see the doctor and they had me do a sleep study. Let me tell you, it is not quite like sleeping in a nice hotel like they say it will be. Why? Because you know someone is watching you sleep and that makes you nervous. Then there are the globs of clay with wires coming out stuck all over in your hair…not fun. Oh, and let’s not forget the little wires stuck to your chest and such and the wires coming in and out of your pajamas. Nope, no hotel has ever asked me to sleep under those conditions. I knew about sleep apnea since hubby has it, so I tried my best to get through the very long night and sleep without thinking too much about the things connected to my body and that if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I have to wait for help to unhook me before I can walk to the bathroom. Not to worry, if I talk or sit up, they will ask me if everything is alright. The voice asking is heard through an intercom system in the room and somewhat like a disembodied voice, not strange at all, right?

The night finally faded into morning and I was allowed to get up and get cleaned up and wash all that yucky stuff out of my hair. Someone had to read the sleep study (watch the videotape of me sleeping while looking at the data collected by all those wires they had stuck all over me). They would get back to me and let me know if I needed to do another sleep study. I was so glad it was over.

It turned out that I had sleep apnea also, but not nearly to the extent hubby does, so I was fitted with a C-Pap machine of my own and I got my life back. I knew I was tired all the time, what mother isn’t? I never got enough sleep, so I blamed that for my being tired all the time. Even after the diagnosis and sleep machine, I was still tired, but I no longer dozed off at stop lights or when I would sit down to read bed-time stories to the kids. I could watch tv shows and even movies without dozing off most of the time.

Now, most of you are probably thinking I have over-shared personal information. However, if even one person reads this and sees themselves in what they read and goes to get it checked out, I will possibly have saved a life. To me, that makes it worth sharing that part of our medical history.

If you don’t sleep well, you may not even know. Not even I knew my hubby was waking up that often, and I surely had no idea I had a problem, until the swollen uvula issue. If you are tired all the time, often wake with a sore throat that goes away after a couple of hours only to return the next morning, or you find yourself dropping off during the day even for just a second, talk to your doctor about it. Getting my sleep apnea diagnosed and treated has been a game changer. That machine is my sleep buddy; it goes everywhere I travel. It doesn’t count as a carry-on because it is a medical device and I never put it in my checked luggage. I just don’t take that kind of chance with my sleeping buddy.

Go get your sleep issues checked out, the life you save could be your own.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Tired
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

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