Darth Vader Has Nothing On Me

Have you ever pulled up to a stoplight and the person beside you is blaring their radio so loudly that even with your windows rolled up, your air-condition running on high and your own radio kicking out your jams at a fairly reasonable decibel, you can still hear and feel their music? Completely annoying right?  Well, pretend that car is beside you in bed and no matter what you do you can't drown out the noise and vibrations emanating from it.  Sounds like a bunch of y'all's husbands doesn't it?  I mean, if I was complaining about my husband you would say something like "OMG, I know right? I have to sleep in another room!" or "it's normal for men, just shove them and ask them to roll over!"...God I wish I could say it was my husband.

Sadly, I snore like a big hairy mammoth that has it's trunk tied closed less a tiny gap that lets a pin-hole worth of air through.  Picture it like this, you know how McDonald's has those extra thick shakes and they think they are helping you by giving you their extra wide straw, but when you go to suck down that cold yummy goodness nothing happens except maybe you drool a little because your mouth gave up?  Yeah, that's me breathing every night.  It's actually so loud that if you walk anywhere near my room you're either going to fear the wild beast that I turned into once sleep found me or I was eaten by a bear.  It's bad y'all, my breathing at night would freak Darth Vader out!  I'll give you a snapshot of how my sleep study went not that long ago - I don't find it nearly as funny as my husband did by the way.  

When you go to a sleep study, you have to go at a weird time of night, and by weird I mean I should be on glass of wine number two but you're not allowed to drink anything but water so as not to mess with their results (if you ask me it feels like they are punishing you for having sleep issues before you even get started).  Once you get there they have you brush your teeth, wash your face and potty so they can hook you up to some machine that resembles the getup Professor X wears to contact all the other weirdos...I mean gifted people around the world and then get right in bed.  Once in bed they tell you to go to sleep however you normally do...which I found amusing since a) I don't ever go to bed at 9:00 and b) they took away my wine which would have allowed me to entertain going to bed at a freakishly early time.  Oddly I passed out immediately.  Somewhere around the mid-night hour the technician came in and told me that my breathing was labored and she was going to put a mask attached to some machine on me to help.  Not gonna lie...I slept great!  I only wanted to throat-punch her a little when she woke me up again at 6:00...IN THE MORNING.  Anyway, you get the results as they are yanking the leads out of your hair, which they glued in with this white gunk so it leaves you looking like you went walking down the beach during a hurricane and the birds overhead were scared shi...to death and their bowels couldn't be held.  My results went like this:
Her - so you say your husband travels during the week?
Me - yes
Her - with your snoring I'm surprised he comes home at all, heck he might be able to hear it all the way in Nevada! Hahahahaha
Me - 
Her - anywho, we recommend the cpap machine...(and a bunch of other words - I was just happy that I was going to be fixed!)

She even added in that I have restless leg syndrome but who cares, I was going to be able to breath during the night!  Looking back, I should have watched for when her pupils turned to dollar signs but at the time I just wanted a good nights rest and for the rest of my family to not dread staying at hotels with me knowing that I'd be the only one asleep.  Technically I'm not sleeping well but to others it appears that way.  I'm literally getting only about 30 minutes of sleep for every 1 hour I'm "sleeping".   Well, I tried that damn machine on every "ramp up" number (how forceful the air is blown into your nose-holes) and every level of humidity and all the combinations that could be made and no matter what I did I felt like someone hooked up a faucet to my nose.  I was sick for days.  I was so sad...it was a big fat fail.  

I gave up trying to solve my problem for a while...it's expensive to keep trying different things!  Over time I've tried mouth guards, saline rinses, nose bands and some other weird stuff that's not holistic as they claim because my lack of sleep had gotten so bad that I could only drive for a short distance before I was fighting sleep and don't even let me sit on the couch for a few minutes!  So, just like any normal person I've decided to have someone break my face to finally fix my problem.  Okay, so I went to an ENT and then a maxillofacial clinic and they are going to fix the way my jaws line up because apparently I have a tiny throat hole and a large tongue (I know, I sound amazingly beautiful). 

Hopefully the next time I blog I'll be all fixed...well, all fixed in that department.  I am constantly reminded of the aging process within my body and this sleeping problem is speeding up the dang process.  Sleep, or lack thereof, affects so many things in your life...I had no idea until these last few years.  When you're young you toss all cares to the wind and pull all-nighters and you bounce back like you didn't miss a beat!  Now, well, if I didn't have two alarms, a kid, a dog and two cats that count on me on some level of survival and a job I adore, I think I could sleep for a week straight!  But no worries folks, I will have more to blog about after this surgery...bladder leaks, weird pains in my left hip, weakening eyesight, squatting for too long, my love affair with Zantac...

Ps. I missed you all!