My 200th Post!
This is what I’m going to be greeted with each night when I go to bed. Lovely huh?
Chris was diagnosed with severe Sleep apnea in June or perhaps early July. Shortly after his diagnosis the company that supplies the machine and mask called and asked that Chris come in to get his machine and be shown how to use the equipment. We didn’t know how much it was going to cost us so we delayed a bit. It turns out that our government actually pays for the machine ($750 or so) but Chris has to pay for the special nose mask and I believe the tubing. I haven’t checked yet but I think I can submit that bill to our medical insurance company and perhaps get some of that money back. I hope so ’cause it cost us over $400.
I still don’t really know what it sounds like other than the light purr of the machine beside the bed. You see, Chris was told to slowly work his way into using the mask all night. Which means he’s only using it for about an hour or two at a time and then taking it off. I’ve been having a very bad week with my pain so I’ve been on the main floor in the living room working on the computer when he’s been trying out this mask.
He’s had the machine for a week or so but hasn’t used it every night. However, on the nights that he does use it for a short while he seems to snore less. Hopefully by the time he works up to wearing it all night we’ll both end up getting better sleep!
I was pretty sure that Chris has sleep apnea for oh, pretty much the whole time we’ve been together (yikes 17 years!). When my doctor was sending me for sleep studies to try to figure out why I can’t sleep after working night shifts (even though I haven’t been working at all lately) I mentioned Chris’ snoring to her and told her that I thought he had sleep apnea, mainly because he snores, snores, then doesn’t seem to breath for a whole minute or so, then the snoring starts up again. As usual I was right.
I’m happy that we’re finally addressing the problem. It’s quite common for people with sleep apnea to end up having heart problems. We’ve already been through a heart scare with Chris. Two years ago he kept passing out at work and he had changes on his electrocardiogram that looked like a very rare cardiac arrhythmia called Brugada. He ended up staying in one of the best hospitals in Toronto for cardiac problems and had many tests, but they couldn’t reproduce the arrhythmia. That’s good, ’cause he would have ended up with a built in defibrillator if they had diagnosed his problem. He has permanent changes to his ECG but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with his heart. We know something happened but we don’t know what. So far so good though, he’s been feeling pretty good for most of the last year.
I’m hoping that now that we are taking care of the apnea perhaps he’ll do even better, or that at least treating the apnea might prevent further trouble from developing.
Does anyone else have a spouse with apnea? One who uses the breathing machine? Does it make much noise? I hope it doesn’t end up that I feel like I’m sleeping with Darth Vader or something!
God! With my abdominal troubles and Chris questionable heart problems and now sleep apnea it sounds like we’re getting old. We aren’t! Look at that pic of Chris we’re both still relatively young, but I guess we have a few more problems going on then others. Oh well.
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I’d like to thank my two landlords this week:
Neurotic Mom – we’re plotting against the famous Mr. Fab Muhhhaaaah!
And ITTM – Does it mean they like my site that they picked me, or just that I was first to bid? Hmmm
I know several people who use the machine while they sleep and it has made a HUGE difference! Yeah, you may look silly using it, but who watches you while you’re asleep anyway. My best friend’s husband uses it-she said it took a little while for her to get used to hearing the machine at night, but she said it was a heck of a lot better than his snoring! Good luck with it!