HALEY KENNEDY: ‘Sleep App-nea’

Confession: I’m in my late 20s, and I have started snoring like a rhinoceros. Now I haven’t actually done the legwork to hear an actual rhinoceros snore, but I’m pretty sure it’s darned loud.

Around the beginning of last year, I caught pneumonia and kept a cough for months. I stopped being able to sleep soundly at night for all the coughing. I blamed it on the pneumonia and tried to ignore it. Then the sleep deprivation got really bad. I’ve got a 3-year-old, so I’ve been through sleep deprivation the likes of which would impress any run-of-the-mill terrorist. But this was almost-falling-asleep-while-driving, dozing-off-at-my-desk, napping-every-evening tired. And when I did sleep, my inner rhinoceros really let loose.

After a while, I got these checked out with my primary doctor, and she told me that my cough was likely at least partially an allergic reaction, but she also thought that I might have sleep apnea. I was absolutely floored. I thought only old and overweight people had sleep apnea. While I’ve been overweight for much of my life (that’s another story for another time), I certainly wasn’t old. Or sick. I just didn’t understand.

I have an auto-immune condition known as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and a metabolic disorder known as PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) in addition to being overweight. My doctor said that this charming trifecta of issues put me at much greater risk for sleep apnea, even at my age. Naturally, I asked if losing weight would help. She told me it might. But in the interim, I needed some dang sleep. I was even grouchier than usual and apparently susceptible to every cold germ within a 10-mile radius. I was absolutely miserable.

So I scheduled a home sleep study. I followed the directions the first night and felt like I was probably going to suffocate myself with all the wires and put myself out of my sleep-deprived misery. Nights two and three were much the same, and as I lay awake praying for the Lord to just go ahead and take me now, I thought that I could never learn to sleep in some awful sleep mask rig so I might as well just learn to live with my awful sleep and the bad attitude it brought with it.

And then I got my results. Sleep apnea. So I went to an appointment and a training session with a respiratory therapist and learned all about this tiny machine that was supposed to be some miracle of modern medicine. Then I went home with my alien sleeping apparatus and prepared for what would no doubt be another long and miserable night of crappy TV and very little sleep.

Once again, I read all the directions and strapped that fool machine to my face. I’ve never looked or felt more beautiful and alluring in my whole life. My husband barely stifled his schoolgirlish giggles. I figured I would use my waking evening hours that night to plot his untimely demise. Luckily for him, something very strange happened. I got comfortable in our giant bed, toddler in the middle, snoring husband on the opposite side, needy cat on my hip, and passed out. And I slept. And slept.

I opened the app that connects to my CPAP machine and found that I had worn the mask and slept for eight hours and fifty eight minutes! I know this because the app on my phone syncs with my CPAP machine. So not only do I get some sleep now, but bless my little Type A heart, I get an app to track my sleeping quality and sleeping trends as well.

I’ve had a lot of nights where I dread the mask, and plenty of people have trouble keeping up with the minimum amount of hours they’re supposed to use it. But this magic medical creation has both saved my life and changed it for the better. And I will always be incredibly grateful for my husband’s ongoing complaints about the rhinoceros in our room. I’ll have to remember to thank him — when I wake up, that is.