While I've not really mentioned it before, I've been sleepy these last few months; for reasons I can't seem to discern. And this shouldn't be.

A bit over a year ago, I had come to the realization that my problems staying awake were far from normal (I dare venture they were abnormal). It wasn't an ordinary issue where just sometimes I was tired and nodded off occasionally. This was every day. I didn't have a "nodding off, head falls forward and wake with a jerk in a loud, obvious spastic movement" type problem, but more of the "walking down the hall nodding off and begin to sink downwards like you are doing the 'look, I'm on an escalator' gag until you wake to find you've been pushing yourself face first across a slick floor which you've lubricated with your own drool" kind. You can imagine how embarrassing that was; face down and butt up like a prisoner saying "come on in". I decided it was time to take action (and not in the way that last sentence might imply I mean).

My first fear was the incurable narcolepsy which (due to reoccurring issues), I haven't ruled out yet. Not liking such a notion, I opt to search for a less dramatic, more curable disorder. Sleep apnea "fit the bill", so I decided to run with that.

To be honest, for the longest time I didn't wonder why I was so tired. I assumed I just didn't get enough sleep like all the other people who were sleeping right along with me in class. But that would make it every night, even ones in which I knew I had gotten plenty of sleep.

The idea that I might have something wrong with me didn't occur to me until I was visiting my grandmother, who is either a doctor and never told me or a pathogen wrapped in the skin of an old, short woman (every time I talk to her she manages to see something. She's found 3 or 4 serious problems with me in the last 2 years just by looking at me). I'm almost afraid to even talk to her now for fear of what she might diagnose me with next. "Where did that black mole on your neck come from?" If she passes away before I do, I'll be right behind her since I won't have anyone to point out all my life threatening problems. Anyway, I was at her house and, seeing as how it's a big turkey, had fallen asleep. When I awoke she told me how she couldn't stand to watch me sleep because I stopped breathing and it was choking her to watch. Further suspicion she wants me destroyed...she didn't wake me, despite the fact that I had stopped breathing. Bet she didn't even take a pulse. I did think it odd to find her passing out my possessions to the family when I woke. "She couldn't stand to watch me sleep" meaning "I'll leave you here alone to unknowingly struggle for your survival. I could wake you but that's a minute of my time you ain't gettin'! I'm not happy about the time I'm wasting talkin' to you now! Time I can't get back! I'm old, I need all the time I can get! And another thing young man..." and that's when I woke up to her shaking a finger at me.

Anyway, off the topic of how my family is plotting on me and back to the original topic. I decided it best to check on this whole "not breathing while sleeping" silliness. After 2 days of sleep observation (where I was noted to have stopped breathing 400 times per night) and many hellishly long visits to the doctor, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. (dun dun dun).

The prospect of actually getting sleep lured me like a siren to a rocky shore (Woo! Finally got to use that). The path to sleep was paved with jagged rocks called surgery. But I decided to do it, because knowing I had such a large problem that could improve my life so much if I had it fixed then not doing it would have haunted me (you know, during those twenty hours a day I'm halfway in dreamland).

September 13, Last Century (for drama), 1999
I had the first of the required two surgeries done. This one involved moving in and clearing things out in my nose. Supposedly the lesser of the two, I have never been so miserable in my life (except that one time I had to take medicine for 14 days that made me have diarrhea every 5 minutes...back when I was in high school...a high school with very little toilet paper and no stall doors, might I add). My nose perpetually bled for a week and a half. I had to keep my nostrils taped up and with my nose bleeding as it was, the blood just piled up inside. I felt like my nose was a jelly-filled donut. Not pleasant.
Side effects: Soup for 40 days and 40 nights, lots more time dedicated to nose pickin' due to overstocking the shelves.

In addition to all that other crap, I had gauss pads shoved way up my nose which could not come out. No amount of practice I had as a child (and let me tell you, I had a lot of it) exploring the nasal passages could dig as deep as this treasure. This blood and mucus covered boon. Getting those out was the worst part of it all...meaning my entire life. First the Doctor (we'll call him Doc because I'm lazy...though with my luck I probably won't ever use the word again...and I wasted more energy typing this than I would have typing "doctor" out...crap) had to tweaser those bad boys out (the gauss...get your minds out of the gutter)(loving my extreme use of parenthesis today?). That part of the ordeal felt stranger than anything I've ever experienced. After the pads were out, he took a foot long metal rod and crammed it where things just aren't meant to be crammed. Rather than him just doing this for fun and stirring around in my nose like it was a Long Island tea, it was a suction device not unlike the one at the dentist, only colder and more painful. And up my nose. That didn't really concern me though as I expected it to eventually find it's way to my mouth anyway.

December 27, 1999
Had the supposed demon of the two operations done; it really wasn't half bad. This one involved cutting out various unneeded extra bits of flesh from my throat and my uvula (aka the hangy down thingy). It's so true that you don't realize how much you love something until it's gone. The lack of uvula is always a conversation piece and is more fun to show people than the tattoo on my spine (though not as cool looking since there isn't much to look at, uvula wise). On dates, if an odd silence comes about I just say "check this out...AHHHHHH!" and where you'd normally have your vision filled by a big wagging uvula, you just see a dork yelling "AHHHHHH!". Oddly enough, I never get a second date with the people I show...hrm...

I like to say I lost my uvula in Nam, but no one ever buys it. If I could have gotten it put on a necklace like I had wanted maybe people would go for it.

In truth, saying this surgery wasn't bad is like saying the Spanish Inquisition isn't bad, which this was very much like, only without all the questions. Despite the cold feeling (which I believe is how death will feel...which is something you never tell someone who is afraid of being put to sleep right before they go have an operation, I learned) you get when you are put under and the fact that I had just seen "Malice" (a movie to fit my most common emotion) the night before, it wasn't as horrid as surgery 1.
Side effects: Momentary feeling of death, more soup, inability to drink liquid until I got the hang of my completely differently functioning throat (Oh, how I miss you uvula.), missing New Years 2000.

In combination with surgery 1, I now have the ability to accidentally shoot things out of my nose rather than swallow it. What kind of things? Meat, drinks, high velocity peas, jagged-edged jolly ranchers that impale your nose and burn like a hot poker, you name it. While this makes an entertaining party favor, it's not very practical for things like eating. For months afterwards, I almost drown myself (glamorous as it sounds, drowning in ketchup isn't an ideal way to go...a retarded means of death that I don't want written on my tombstone, right up there with "died of chickenpox") daily until I learned how to drink without a uvula.

Back to my original point, yet again (which I've really forgotten so I'm faking it from here on out). I'm tired. For a while after the surgeries, I was sleeping great. I was never tired, my eyes shot open at 6:45 every morning, and I was always in a good mood (rest does that to a person it seems). Then I started having to rely on the alarm clock again and was cranky in the morning (because of the alarm clock noise!). Most importantly, I'm tired like I used to be before the operation(s). My guess (and hope) is that it is simply the winter. Everyone is tired in winter, so I'm told. And since I get little sun this time of year and way too much exposure to the positive ions of the computer, that might explain my tiredness and temper (at times).

Cold as it is, I broke down and bought a bike (from his brother) finally. I will put it to use despite the weather just to get some air. I don't know if I'll be able to lug it around to downtown in the back of my new car in the manner I did with my old car. So I may have to go pick up a bike rack, though that really is no big deal. I'm just hoping this does the trick because I hate feeling so miserable because I'm sleepy all the time. If not, I hope at least summer will fix me up. If none of this does the trick, I'll be slightly (more) worried that I have a larger problem.

Holy cow that was long.

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