One of the results of this body is that my organs are bigger than the average. For example being tall and broad I have a bigger pelt than most people, more skin. I have bigger parts too. They say your heart is the size of your fist, so my heart is bigger too. And my other parts like my nose, and my head and my ears. And my tonsils. Tonsils? And bigger Uvula. Uvula? I know you thought I was going to talk about another organ, but that is private and you have to be on a need to know basis to find out about that, but tonsils and uvula are important.
I just looked both of them up to be sure what they do. The uvula dumps saliva into your mouth so that you can talk for a very long time, or sing, or do what you need to do like eat crackers. Tonsils are the first part in the defense of infections entering though the mouth., the skin is of course the first line of defense for infections normally. So big tonsils means better health and big uvula allows me to eat drier foods and talk longer than nonhuman animals.
Those two organs have been bigger in me for a long time and they have served me well as I don't get sick very often and that might be a factor. One other impact has been sleep apnea. My father has it and we used to watch him while he slept on the couch. He would snore and snore and snore and stop… and when I say stop I mean stop breathing. And then he would snort and start breathing again and snore and snore and snore and snore and snore and stop.
My first girlfriend could not sleep with me. I did not understand why and it was truthfully a lot of the reason why we broke up. She said that I breathed too loud. I did not understand, but she meant I snored. My second girlfriend confirmed this, but I thought that this was normal, because my dad snored and I thought that was normal.
A few years later when I had a third girlfriend and an Autism diagnosis and actually trying to combat it. With the result that I wanted to get rid of the snoring; I wanted to be healthy. According to MPTR it was like sleeping beside a freight train and then I would stop breathing. Then I would start again. I was in love and I wanted to change so I went to my doctor and entered a sleep study.
It is an appointment that you go to at night. You get their when it is dark and you arrive and they spent a lot of time hooking you up with sensors on wires. All over your head, your face, your chest, your arms and your legs. There is a strap over your stomach. And they measure you brain waves and your movements at night and how you breathe. They also have a microphone pickup. And then they tell me to go to sleep.
When I woke up I told the technician that I was done, I normally slept for five hours in a night but there I slept for seven hours so I asked as I was unhooked what they thought of the sleep. They said they have heard worse, but I had sleep apnea for sure. When I got the report, it said that I had stopped breathing an average of nineteen times an hour and I did not have proper sleep, that my REM was interrupted and very short. They said that I also fell asleep within two minutes of turning the lights out, way faster than I thought.
It took me a little while to get the Sleep Apnea breathing machine. Getting used to wearing a sleeping mask was difficult, but I knew that if I did not get this fixed, I would not get another girlfriend, so I had reason to persist. It took me about three months get used to wearing it and I did not notice any affect on me except that my perpetually stuffed nose was finally clear and I could breath through it.
Such is the way of gradual things that you do not notice great changes, but you do notice when the change is more pronounced. Like when I forgot my machine at a place I was staying and I did not have it for a week. I woke up groggy and I had to take a nap in the afternoon to make it to my regular bed time. And then all week I was in a haze. Another affect of getting my sleep in order was that caffeine started to have an effect on me; I thought I was immune or that it put me to sleep. But it turns out that when you are over tired it can't stimulate you and it relaxes you.
How much noise does a sleep apnea machine make? Not much. It pumps air into a mask and when I breathe it all goes into me and when I exhale to stops blowing and in the pauses it blows out vents. It is about as noisy as a regular breathing sleeping person and a lot quieter than a snoring buffalo. You can't nuzzle my face when I am sleeping but then I am sleeping. When I am awake I will be more alert and attentive. It is the better way. No freight train in the bedroom, no worried person wondering if I have breathed my last breath.
No comments:
Post a Comment