About five years ago I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. On the face of it that seems like a good thing, since up until then, I was falling to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. And I mean falling to sleep, not drowsy, not tired, not forty winks but out and out losing consciousness, one moment I’d be looking at my computer screen and then forty-five to fifty minutes later I’d come to, usually with a jerking of my drooped head, resulting in, at best, a head ache or worst, a stiff neck. Often both.
Driving was my worst nightmare, even during the middle of the day any distance longer than a five minute drive became a battle to keep my eyes open. I had to do something, this just could not continue, so, on my doctor’s advice, I had a sleep test done and, to my horror, it turns out that I was waking up (unknown to me) on an average of 50 times every hour, no wonder I was feeling tired all the time.
To help me sleep I was fitted with a Sleep Apnea machine, calibrated to pump air down my throat, preventing my own body from blocking off my air passages thus keeping oxygenated blood pumping through my heart and going to my brain.
First off Sleep Apnea machines (Sleep - a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness. Apnea – from the Latin Ap: meaning more than likely to…and Nea: meaning no sex ever again) should come with warnings, you know the type of warning that you hear on the TV and radio medicine commercials, reeled off in a monotone voice with absolutely no pauses. Something that goes along the lines, “may cause the wearer to forever sleep alone, will cause morning hair to look like you stuck your hand in a socket, will make it feel like you’re sleeping in a wind storm, will cause excess gas build-up, will make your bed companion think there’re sleeping with Darth Vader, will make you sound like a banshee every time you open your mouth.
The first week with the new machine was great, I mean I am a gadget man after all and this, if nothing else, was a great gadget. I set it up next to my bed, ran the breathing hose from the air pump into the humidifier, then into my mask. Put the mask over my face and presto I have 12 lbs. of air pressure being forced down my throat.
Talking with the mask on was a no no, not a bad thing for those of us who are married, but try to ask for a glass of water or to turn off the light…no go. With the mask on, if you wanted something done you had to get up and do it yourself.
Not to mention going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. When you finally remember to take off your mask before going to the bathroom (after the first ten or so times you get jerked back into bed by your new umbilical chord) you then hear, while you’re relieving yourself, a soft electronic beeping, which you don’t realize is the ‘mask-off’ warning coming from the Sleep Ap machine until you’re in the middle of what you’re doing and cannot stop (I understand that women can but that’s not a possibility with men) and you know that the beeping will continue to get louder and louder until it wakes your wife, and when this happens, you just know your next day is going to be shit.
Then there is the by-pass air, the mask is not air tight, apparently purposely so, obviously the inventor wasn't getting any action so was not concerned with anybody else getting some, or else, was a woman because the little extra air wouldn’t bother any man that I know of. The mask has the same gale force winds blowing out from its edges as going down your throat.
Now, there is not a woman in the world, that I know of, who does not complain of it being cold, on a sunny day, in the slightest of breezes. With air being pushed out at 12 pounds per square inch cascading down their body, they would probably freeze to death. So spooning with the mask on is ab-so-lute-ly out of the question.
After two years of using the face mask, it was time to get a new one, so I decided to move away from the full face mask, after all I’m a pro at the sleep Ap machine by now, celibate, but well used to it. I decided on a slim line nose only design, at least with my mouth free I could now talk, or so I thought.
Now every time I open my mouth a blast of 12 pounds per square inch air rips out…I feel like a super hero, able to blast the bad guys into oblivion with just a simple opening of my mouth, unfortunately this incredible super power does not come with the obligatory buff body. Just my luck, this comic isn’t being written by Stan Lee but by Alfred E. Newman of “What, me worry!” fame.
And that’s not all, just think about it, I sleep every night with this copious amount of air being rammed down my throat, where does all the air go. Let me suffice it to say that I can now fart the entire Beethoven's’ 5th symphony…on demand…as many times a day as I want.
And then my wife divorces me and I have to start dating again…with a Sleep Apnea machine?!
Man Oh man! I’m sleeping alone, for the rest of my life, guaranteed!
No comments:
Post a Comment