Wiindsday

Again. Ugh.

Well, no thunder or lightning -- yet -- but plenty of rain.

Among my myriad problems with too much rain: rainy days are perfect for snoozing. One of my favorite things to do is turn down the AC to get it nice and chilly, then snuggle under the covers and let the slow, steady breathing of one or more of the dogs lull me off to sleep.

I'm sleep-challenged. Have been since I was a kid. But when I was fifteen, it was a lot easier to get by on four hours of sleep than it is now. Now it doesn't matter how much sleep I get; I'm always sleepy. Not tired, necessarily; just sleeping. In the past I could blame it on my sleep apnea -- you know, where you stop breathing when you're asleep? I tested at "moderate apnea" on the sleep study a few years back because I woke up "only" 24 times an hour. Only??? No wonder I was pooped.

The thing is, you're not really awake most of those times. After you stop breathing, your brain wakes up enough to send a message to the lungs to get their asses back to work. But then there's that occasional one where you stop breathing long enough that when your brain does jump-start, you give this great big panicked-sounding inhale that usually wakes not only you but everyone else in the room with you. (And scares the pee out of dogs. Take my word for it.)

Which is why I sleep every night with my CPAP -- a little machine that creates Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. It's like sleeping with a vacuum turned to blow clamped on your face. No shit, nights are not romantic in the Butler household. First I have to braid my hair in two Swiss-mountain-girl type braids to keep it from getting tangled in all the Velcro. Then I put on this full-face mask, which actually only covers my nose and mouth. The headgear is like a five-point restraint system, plus there's a another strap that goes on last, under the chin to fasten on top of the head. Then there's a six-foot hose coming out from the vicinity of the nose to hook onto the machines next to the bed. One actually creates the air that blows continuously into the mask; the other is a humidifier.

Once I'm all hooked up, it's hard for Robert to even find a bare spot to kiss goodnight. It's hard to talk with the mask on, though I have learned I can sound something like Darth Vader if I try. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, the seal around the mask will break and it makes a loud whooshing sound until I finally wake up. And we've learned that we can't snuggle face-to-face when I'm wearing it because the CO2 (?) vent blows right in Robert's eyes.

Dangling on the right side of the mask is the panic strap -- required by law, or so I was told, on all full-face masks. It's a little string that, when pulled, undoes the Velcro fastening in back so the mask comes loose. Gee, I dunno . . . I'm panicking and need to get the mask off asap. Am I going to fumble around in the dark trying to find this little dangling strap, or am I gonna just reach behind with one hand and yank the sucker apart? I'm voting for yanking.

Learning to sleep with the machine wasn't as tough as I'd thought it would be. I mean, you're wearing a mask and head gear and you've got air blowing constantly into your nose/mouth to keep your airway from collapsing, and the machine makes it own noise and you have to learn to breathe out against the incoming air. But honest to God, it wasn't hard at all. However . . .

Thank God I don't have the regular kind of job where I have to get up and leave the house in the morning. Mask + head gear + me mashing face into pillow all night = some pretty funky lines all over my face. Everyone knows if I was bad and skipped the mask the night before, because I'll be missing the lines that all the injectible stuff in the world couldn't plump up. And they last for hours. Fortunately, I haven't run into anyone crass enough to ask, "What's wrong with your face?" (Oh, that question could mean soo many things.)

Okay, all this talk about sleep has made me sleepy. And I haven't written a word elsewhere today, so I'd best try. If it's tough going, I can always take a nap, then try again.






Rachel10:07 AM