Saturday, December 29, 2007
J just got diagnosed with sleep apnea. It's a long long story, ending in him needing a CPAP machine whenever he sleeps, even for naps. He does feel better. LOTS better and that's all that counts. It hurts his face, throat, forehead, eyes, chin, cheeks and mouth. I feel so sorry that he has to wear that. We know it's doing it's job however, because if left untreated the doctors gave him 3-5 years to live. Who knew untreated sleep apnea could lead to Congestive Heart Failure?
Onto why is rules our life. My poor J has to wear it, it's not a choice. During one of his sleep study tests he stopped breathing 191 times in an hour. AN HOUR. He feels horribly claustrophobic by it. I can see why. Having something strapped to your face, basically forcing oxygen down you when you haven't even gone to sleep yet. It's not allowed to leak, and you have to have it on all night long. It takes a while for us to get in in position. It's not tight enough, it's too tight, it feels weird and so on and so on. Then when he gets in bed..I have to rub his back to get him to regulate his breathing and calm him down some. It helps.
I wasn't sleeping very well before he got diagnosed. I was always waking up to make sure he was breathing. Then I was up all day with the kids. I was exhausted. Now I think my sleep is finally getting caught up. I thought it would be a very noisy and loud machine, but it's not. Not compared to J's snoring! I sleep like a log and it's a good sleep too. Restful, deep and satisfying.
I'm happy he's getting better. He's waking up much earlier, not sleeping all day and not falling asleep 20 minutes after getting up from sleeping all day.
He doesn't qualify for wearing just the nostril mask, he snores too much for it and with his airway collapsing the way it does, it just would not provide enough force to keep it open as the full face mask does.
Here is what he wears every night:
Talk about major suckage..or in this case..blowage! Let's continue to hope he wears it and gets used to it.
He's going to have to.
Or I'll super glue it to his face.
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