Saturday, March 13, 2004

To sleep, perchance to breathe uninterrupted through the night...

I have sleep apnoea, I think. It's happened to me several times before in my life, and it happened last night. I'm not talking about snoring either - I usually wouldn't know it if I'm snoring at night.

What I'm talking about is having a fine 'ole sleep, then starting to wake up to the fact that I Absolutely Cannot Breathe. When this happens, I know that I have to change the position of my head and/or body, in order to be able to breathe again. But I don't want to, because I'm sooo sleepy. But I have to, or suffocate. So I force myself to wake up enough to move, and finally I can gasp all that precious air again.

It's bloody scary, actually.

Several years ago, a doctor told me to try elevating the 'head' end of my bed. So I brought home some wood off-cuts from a local timber yard and propped up my bed. This seemed to work for a long time. However, it happened last night and now I'm worried again. It's not like my partner is going to notice when and if it happens again, and help me:

a) he'll be asleep and
b) I won't be able to tell him.

Maybe I shouldn't worry - after all, every time this has occurred in the past I've managed to get breathing again. But there's always a first time, right??

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