It's Never Convenient When Your Health Is Declining Pt 4

I had planned on talking more about when I finally received my CPAP (December 17th), and the troubles I have had between then and my follow up with my sleep specialist on February 18th. The Reader's Digest version is it has not been easy for me to adjust to sleeping with my mask. In January, it seemed my health took a sudden dive. We were not sure why it was getting worse, and at an astonishing rate. I use to be able to have enough energy to go grocery shopping, and then I couldn't. I would go almost a week without ever setting foot outside our home. I was that exhausted. I feel that I need to jump quickly into my follow up appointment. It was at this appointment we found out how severe things were.

Follow Up With Sleep Specialist:
I had to take Ian and Lara with me to the appointment. That was an adventure. Ian kept trying to run off, and Lara would chase him down. Once they took us into the exam room, Ian would open the door and take off into the office. I had to put a chair in from of the door and sit in it to keep him from escaping. My sleep specialist came in and went over the results from my second sleep study. My sleep was extremely fragmented, and I was only able to successfully sleep 2 1/2 hours, which made it difficult to determine the right setting for my CPAP. My sleep was fragmented in my first sleep study as well. It was to be expected since I do wake up several times during the night at home.
In the 2 1/2 hours I slept with my CPAP, I was able to achieve 10 1/2 minutes of REM. Not a whole lot. My sleep specialist, "Well, I least you got some versus none before." I never achieved stage 3 sleep. Normal sleep efficiency is anything over 90%. Mine was 38%. She told me she had never seen a number that low. Then she began telling me what all this meant. I have had sleep apnea for so long, my brain changed the way it functioned while I slept so it could keep me alive. How did it change? It stays alert the entire time, so even though I'm sleeping, I'm not really sleeping. As she put it, my brain, in regards to sleep, has PTSD. I'm sleep deprived, very sleep deprived. We began talking about how I'm not functioning well. We talked about how Dave is doing poorly in school because of it. As she put it, "Everyone (in my family) is drowning." Then she looked me right in the eye and told me, "You need someone to take your kids everyday so you can sleep." She told me to contact my Relief Society president, and if they won't help, then take my kids to a crisis nursery. I need to get enough sleep. I need to not be getting less sleep during this time. My brain needs to retrain itself, recognize that it is now safe. The only way to do that is to get plenty of sleep using my CPAP. If I don't, my brain is going to snap, and if it does, I could end hurting someone, including my children. I broke down crying in her office (I'm crying now as I type all of this). I told her about how people have judged me over the years. She told me that I'm not a lazy person, I'm sleep deprived, and that is NOT my fault. She talked to me about how important it is to get better because it's not fair to my children (something I've been saying to Dave for a long time). My children need their mom, and in my present condition, I cannot be that mom.

I left the appointment, and headed straight home. Dave met me at the car, and I lost it. Through the sobbing, I told him what the sleep specialist said. We talked about it, how it's good and bad news. Good that we now know exactly what is wrong, bad because of what needs to be done. We discussed our options. Dave considered withdrawing for this year and staying home to help. Then we found out he would have to completely withdraw from the program and reapply. If he gets accepted again, he would have to start over from the beginning. That's double the student loan debt. If he fails out, then we're stuck with student loan debt that we'll never be able to get out from under. He's only allowed to retake 5 courses during the summer. More than that, and he's kicked out. At the time we found all this out, he was already at 5 retakes for the summer. He appealed three of the tests, and 2 were accepted. Then he didn't pass this last test, there's nothing to appeal, so he's back up to 4. There are 4 tests remaining. This next one is one that a lot of people don't pass. One of the things that is so frustrating is that his school uses a pass/fail system. You have to get 90% on the test to pass. If it was lower, he would be passing everything.

So here we are. Praying Dave will make it through this year, praying for help, and feeling frustrated about everything. I've been told that no one can watch my kids, so I'm not getting the rest my sleep specialist told me I HAVE to have. I can't get better without it, I'll only get worse. The scary part, I can end up in the hospital from this, away from my family. I can die from this. But I can't get people to understand how serious my condition is, all because I "just need some sleep." The sleep that right now is not actually sleep because my brain is scared.

If your doctor suspects you have sleep apnea, get it checked out right away. If you think you may have sleep apnea, push your doctor to test you. I can tell you from personal experience, you don't want to end up where I'm at.