I am here to tell you that I have finally been converted. I am a woman of faith in the machine. I am a believer in the the technology. I am new and improved, a card-carrying witness to the sleepless that there is hope for all of you the way there was for me.
Two weeks ago, I got fitted for a CPAP.
I've been healed. It feels like a miracle. I go to bed a little tired and I breathe in the cool damp air provided through a tube. In the morning, I wake up cheerful, happy, whistling. All day long I'm acting this way.
I might be annoying my friends, the ones who have yet to be converted. The ones who liked to commiserate in my misery. The ones who are exhausted. The ones who still complain that they're tired all of the time, even doing stuff they used to think was fun.
I'd like to say I should have done this years ago but I wouldn't have. I just couldn't commit to putting a mask over my nose connected to a hose connected to an air pump. I was afraid of that alien feeling of air blowing out of my mouth when I opened it. Mike couldn't really talk right once he had his mask on at night. I knew it had to feel strange. It does, if I think about it. I was afraid of being choked by the umbilical. I had visions of the Matrix, all of us connected to the network to become batteries for the AI aliens. I wanted to sleep unencumbered.
But I was exhausted. It was excruciating when I was also in the middle of menopausal hot flashes and flares of hypoglycemic fury and while Nick was in the middle of his Neanderthal preteen days. I reached rock-bottom this summer when I just couldn't feel rested no matter how many hours I slept, nine, nine and a half, even ten hours pieced together in a night. Sometimes I was spending twelve hours trying to get eight hours of sleep. I was miserable. I couldn't make a basic decision. I couldn't get anything accomplished.
So finally, after two or three years of snoring myself awake multiple times a night, of being crabby and tired all day, and of telling people I'd never hook myself to a tube that blows air up my nose all night because of my claustrophobia or whatever horror movie fear I harbored, I finally took the plunge and told a sleep doctor I was ready to do whatever it took so I could get a decent night's sleep.
And I am here, on the other side, telling you that if you suffer from snoring, if you snort yourself awake even once a night, if you drag your sorry ass through every meeting, though every movie, though every conversation as if it's a chore, it may be time for you to convert too.
Join us, the enthusiastic, the merry, the gordamned go-getters of the world. CPAP users unite! Or maybe you're afraid we will kill you with our cheerfulness during the movie.
Thank you for listening, jb
Two weeks ago, I got fitted for a CPAP.
I've been healed. It feels like a miracle. I go to bed a little tired and I breathe in the cool damp air provided through a tube. In the morning, I wake up cheerful, happy, whistling. All day long I'm acting this way.
I might be annoying my friends, the ones who have yet to be converted. The ones who liked to commiserate in my misery. The ones who are exhausted. The ones who still complain that they're tired all of the time, even doing stuff they used to think was fun.
I'd like to say I should have done this years ago but I wouldn't have. I just couldn't commit to putting a mask over my nose connected to a hose connected to an air pump. I was afraid of that alien feeling of air blowing out of my mouth when I opened it. Mike couldn't really talk right once he had his mask on at night. I knew it had to feel strange. It does, if I think about it. I was afraid of being choked by the umbilical. I had visions of the Matrix, all of us connected to the network to become batteries for the AI aliens. I wanted to sleep unencumbered.
But I was exhausted. It was excruciating when I was also in the middle of menopausal hot flashes and flares of hypoglycemic fury and while Nick was in the middle of his Neanderthal preteen days. I reached rock-bottom this summer when I just couldn't feel rested no matter how many hours I slept, nine, nine and a half, even ten hours pieced together in a night. Sometimes I was spending twelve hours trying to get eight hours of sleep. I was miserable. I couldn't make a basic decision. I couldn't get anything accomplished.
So finally, after two or three years of snoring myself awake multiple times a night, of being crabby and tired all day, and of telling people I'd never hook myself to a tube that blows air up my nose all night because of my claustrophobia or whatever horror movie fear I harbored, I finally took the plunge and told a sleep doctor I was ready to do whatever it took so I could get a decent night's sleep.
And I am here, on the other side, telling you that if you suffer from snoring, if you snort yourself awake even once a night, if you drag your sorry ass through every meeting, though every movie, though every conversation as if it's a chore, it may be time for you to convert too.
Join us, the enthusiastic, the merry, the gordamned go-getters of the world. CPAP users unite! Or maybe you're afraid we will kill you with our cheerfulness during the movie.
Thank you for listening, jb
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