Luckily for me, I got diagnosed with severe sleep apnea after my stroke. So you know what that means: every night when I get ready for bed Jen has to strap a catcher’s mask with a 400 psi air hose running from it onto my face. The purpose of this setup is so I can get a continuous night’s sleep that isn’t being constantly interrupted by sleep apnea. I get that, it totally makes sense. What I don’t understand though is how wearing high-altitude mountain climbing gear would help me get a good night’s sleep.

Here’s how a portion of our nightly routine goes: At approximately 10:20 Jen affixes my head gear to my face, making sure the mask is positioned correctly over my mouth and that the pieces running to my nose are seated firmly in my nostrils. She then fires up the machine that forces open my airway. After that, she goes into the bathroom and begins brushing her teeth. At 10:21, the pieces feeding forced air to my nostrils inevitably lose their tight seal and air escapes, blowing directly into my eye and creating a loud hissing noise. Jen hears this over the cursing and yelling in my head and comes out of the bathroom with a mouthful of toothpaste to investigate. In 10-15 short minutes and several adjustments, we’re in business again and Jen can finish up in the bathroom. I don’t think that the CPAP mask in itself is a bad thing and is probably beneficial overall but since I can’t use my hands and adjust it to stop it from leaking, it often wakes up Jen and me in the middle of the night.

(commercial break…)
This doesn’t have anything to do with anything but I heard a good quote recently. I’m not a “motivational poster hanging in my cubicle” kind of guy but I think it’s worth sharing. I watch or listen to nearly every Cardinals game and ex-pitcher Rick Horton is usually one of the announcers. On an extremely dismal road trip not too long ago where they got swept a couple of times, he was commenting on how the team was sticking together even tighter and continuing to play hard through the downward turn of events. He quoted someone else, an old-time manager or something, and said: ‘Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.’
Well, I thought it was good.
(…end commercial)

I want to keep this short because I’m starting to get a little whiny. The worst part about this whole sleep setup is learning how to get comfortable sleeping on my back. I feel like I’m in a coffin or I’m a mannequin, it can be very claustrophobic.
“Normally”, I like sleeping on my stomach so this takes some getting used to. I’ve been doing it for seven years now and I still can’t get comfortable. The CPAP mask is no big deal though, I got used to wearing that thing after the first 700-800 nights!

Shoot down any MiGs yet?