CPAP smell like sunshine.

Hooray for Captain Spalding, the African Explorer. Did someone call me shnoror? Hooray, hooray, hooray!
Shnoror, snorer. Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to. The bottom line is snoring sucks -- loudly. And it gets worse over time, especially if you're prone to (gasp) neck fat. What? Seriously, my doctor -- M.D. -- used the words "neck fat." As she's looking inside my mouth she's mumbling, "Aw yeah, there's a lot going on in there. That's some serious neck fat." Bitch, I will drop kick you right out that window, callin' my neck fa ... hey wait, I just caught glimpse of my neck in the mirrow. It really IS fat. No one will ever love me!
Enter Sandi, my other. Lover of fat-necked men, apparently. Hey, it's OK, cuz I loves me some big bottomed woman. Win/win. Anyhoo, Sandi, being not able to sleep because of my snoring for like EVER, issued the mandate: Either spend the rest of your life in the guest room, or go see your doctor. She, also being a dedicated non-licensed doctor/researcher/prognosis-a-tician and general woman about town, suggested I might have Apnea. The big A. As in, "Ah'll kill ya if ya don't stop that god damn shnororin'." True to form, "research Sandi" forwarded a link where symptoms of Anpea could be found, most of which described me to a 't'. Except, of course, the one about reduced sex drive (he said, grabbing his crotch and spitting in a most masculine fashion. Know what I'm sayin'?).
Yeah, so fast forward past Dr. FatNeck's insightful diagnosis to the sleep clinic. Two visits, 2 weeks apart, either easily qualifying as the least comfortable night you'll ever spend -- even if you were in the trenches in WWI with scurvy, sleeping in the icy mud puddles between a guy with cabbage farts and a pile of rotting corpses. That exploded. And had bad breath. And high voices.
Anyway, having just tried to recount the sleep clinic experiences and having also realized that the memories are just too painful to relive, I opted to erase and will now mercifully skip ahead yet again.
CPAP delivery day. Hooray! Even though the guy who was scheduled to deliver was like 3 hours late, hooray! Even though the $600 co-pay was due on delivery and nobody told me, hooray! Even though 3-hour-late guy, once done with his hour-long spiel about how to use your new CPAP (continuous positive air pressure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_airway_pressure) eased into his impression of John Belushi's "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave," regaling me with stories of his kids' shenanigans at Bible camp, etc., hooray! Hooray to it all, because I'm sleepin' tonight, bitches!
And so it was. Having finally shoo-ed Johnny CPAP delivery guy out the door and onto his next spiritual connection, I gazed. I caressed. I whispered sweet nothings. We are going to be friends, you and I. Lovers. I will breathe your HEPA-filtered-pure and constant air into the marrow of my soul and you, you will illuminate my dreams with flickering, frolicking adventures along life's golden shores. OH, CPAP, you slut! Do me here and now!
Screech. Back up a bit.
Yeah, about those symptoms. Give this a read: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/tc/sleep-apnea-symptoms
That's a pretty suckful existence, no? Yes. So you'd expect this magic bullet of oxygenization to be an out-of-the-box instant life changer, no? Yes. And was it? Well, no and yes. Maybe it was my intense excitement at the thought of getting better that kept me from sleeping well that night. Maybe it was the break in period they'd warned me about, where you need to adjust to having air pumped into your nostrils all night long (it really is kinda fun. You should try it.). Whatever the reason, I didn't notice jack the next morning. By all accounts I should have been happy and peppy and bursting with love. Eh. I think I made pancakes, but not as a way to expend my newfound energy reserves, and certainly not with Dick Van Dyke-esque morning alertness. Really it was only because the anticipation of my newfound energy made me promise my kids pancakes the night before.
But as the day wore on I realized I wasn't as tired. I didn't feel like taking a nap. I wasn't pissed off. Maybe it actually did work. In hindsight I suppose my expectations were a bit unrealistic in that there was no audible fanfare, no bounding out the door to run the first of what would surely be many marathons. It was much more back-bay tidal than wave-crashing-on-the-shore tidal.
Over the months since I began using my CPAP I have noticed dramatic changes in my being. Sure, I'm still pissed off, but now it's for the right reasons -- many of which will no doubt follow as entries on this blog. But the biggest change of all? Ich bin ein CPAP-er. You can have my CPAP when you pry my dead, cold, sleep-deprived fingers from it. My other CPAP is a Mercedes. Whatever. I'm a believer. Nap time.