Oh CRAP

I haven't posted about the sleep apnea thing for quite a while. No, I haven't gotten used to the Damn Machine--in fact just the opposite. After about 5 months of using it, my breathing patterns seem to have been significantly retrained, and I haven't used it since about March. Yeah, I love being able to sleep on my stomach again.

But recently, I've been noticing a tendency to be tired again. It creeps up on one, this lack of sleep, and suddenly I heard myself saying something I hadn't said for months. "Gosh, I'm tired!" (I try not to swear in front of the kidlets.)

So I waited for a night Captain Sweetie was away on business travel, and reattached the Damn Machine for the night. God I had forgotten how it makes me feel like an elephant--the long air tube coming off the front of my face and getting tangled up as I sleep. Did the mask used to leak like this? Air is streaming into my left eye, and across my nose. This must mean readjustment. Fine, so I get the air to stop escaping. . .and now I can feel the mask material searing into my skin, so I have to loosen it and the air is escaping again. . .

It was a long night. For the three hours I actually managed to keep the Damn Thing on.

You know the real tragedy? After one night--ONE NIGHT--and not even an entire night with that Damn Machine, what do I get.

Insomnia.

Killer insomnia. The kind where you toss and turn and wake up your bed partner (who falls asleep again in under 0.075 seconds, so he doesn't remember it, but he doesn't hear the scary noises he makes when he is startled from sleep). The kind of killer insomnia where you (and by you, I mean "me") go downstairs and watch the sun come up before feeling the least bit sleepy.

Four hours of sleep for a number of nights in a row isn't good for me. Know how I can tell? Because I can't even remember how many nights it has been.

But there is a silver lining! When I have insomnia, I don't have to wear the Damn Machine!

So! How's It Going?

You want to know how the sleep thing is going? The dear old CRAP machine? How sweet of you to ask! Bless your little cotton socks.

It's still a bit of a hassle, sleeping connected to a tube the size of a vacuum cleaner hose. At least that's what I hear, as I don't think I have actually seen a vacuum cleaner hose. Evil geniuses don't do housework, you know?

I am noticing that I am much less tired. I have spent quite a lot of time being too tired to really implement my evil plans, having to spend entirely too much time yawning and dragging my sorry ass around. Tired down to the bones. Sometimes that means being actually sleepy, and sometimes it means just being ground down and slow--mentally and physically.

These days, I actually wake up feeling refreshed, which is not something I have really felt for a long long time. Mr. Sweetie says that even when I don't wear it, I seem to be sleeping better. He might even say that I snore less, but since anyone who says I snore gets turned into a particularly repulsive toad, he doesn't say that.

So, the nights wear on, and I'm sleeping noticeably better, which makes the whole castle a cheerier place. As much as a dire fortress of grey stone wedged on a barren mountain can be, that is.