48 Times In An Hour. (Yawn)
Updated: Apr 24, 2021
**Repost**
In May of this year I received the scare of my life. Like most people, I snore. I wish that was the end of it. For years and years my wife Susan complained about the inability to sleep due to my snoring. I did a sleep test 10 years ago and they said I was fine so I said I was fine. Stupid me. Poor Susan.
Over this past year I came to the realization I wasn’t rested. I would go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 6am and climb out of bed like I never went to bed. I was miserable and I took that misery out on everyone. I was cranky, short tempered, easily agitated, short, grumpy, and a basic ass. I knew it reached a point when one day I parked the car in the driveway and proceeded to fall asleep in the car for over an hour. I couldn’t even get through the opening credits of a movie without crashing. It was crazy.
I decided to take another sleep test. Partly for me and partly because I was waking up with Susan in the guest room. That wasn’t fair. So I schlepped down to Kaiser to hear the pronouncement.
Results:
I stopped breathing 48 times (apnea events) in an hour.
I stopped breathing as long as 25 seconds.
Blood Oxygen levels dipped as low as 86%. Not good.
I physically snored 40% of the night.
Unacceptable. I was literally killing myself and inviting a stroke into my life.
Solution:
Enter the CPAP machine. I hated this machine. Who wants a hose strapped to their head for 6 hours a day? Who wants a machine humming near their head for 6 hours a day? This thing has literally saved my sleep health. I don’t think I’ve ever known sleep like this before. It has literally saved my life.
I went from sleeping 3 hours/ night to 6.5 hours.
Went from 48 apnea events (stop breathing) to less than 2 (normal).
Went from having 5 alarm times to barely using my alarm clock.
3 Lessons:
Don’t be “health lazy”. Listen to your body.
Listen to your wife.
Repeat lesson 2.
Note: My results are below. The white chart is from the CPAP machine and the blue chart is from my FitBit which monitors my sleep. Life is already short. Don’t make is shorter. Get some sleep.
