Afraid To Sleep

It's 1:28 a.m. in California and I'm wide awake. Not because if I was home in Maine I'd already be at work. It's not even because I'm on vacation and it's OK to be awake at this time...it's because I'm actually afraid to go to sleep!



Many of you know that I suffer from severe sleep apnea and use a BiPAP machine in order to sleep through the night. I've been using it for about a year and can't imagine my life without it...it has truly changed the way I live. Sleeping without it means extreme snoring, gasping for air, literally waking up hundreds of times and never getting any fit sleep.



Well, about two hours ago I went to crawl into bed after a long, hot day of vacation fun...and my BiPAP machine started beeping and the LED display read "Service Required." In short...my lifeline to a good night sleep...and the sanity of my family...is now at stake!

After calming down from my initial panic I was able to reach a real live person on the phone and explain my problem...and we all know how hard that is now that we seem to automate every call or at best, outsource it overseas!

So imagine my shock when a real person came on the phone and immediately put my mind at ease. "Try to get some sleep or at least the best you can Mr. Fox...and we'll have someone from the local office in Sacramento call you first thing in the morning so that we can switch out your machine."

WOW! Can it really be that easy? I don't know...I'm sure hoping. The thought of sleeping...or not sleeping in this case...without my BiPAP is really scary. I just remember how horrible I used to feel...tired, run down, irritable, unable to stay awake in important meetings, falling asleep at stop lights...it was awful. The sad part is that I lived like that for years before finally having a sleep study and being diagnosed.

So if you're reading this and you're someone that can fall asleep any place...and I do mean any place, or you've been told that you that you snore a lot, or maybe your excessively irritable...then you may suffer from sleep apnea.

You owe it to yourself to read up on the subject and see what it's all about. Go to http://www.sleepapnea.org/info/index.html to find out more.



I've now sequestered myself to an isolated part of the house where my snoring and gasping for air shouldn't wake anyone up except me. We sure don't need anyone else tired and irritable tomorrow...after all, we're on vacation...we should at least wait until we get home to be exhausted.