Andrew Kay: Sleep Tight

There’s nothing like a few days in hospital if you want to find out what’s wrong…

My recent hospital stay was pretty scary. Overhearing “vital organs shutting down” and “legs turning blue” certainly scares, but it was something else that was mentioned after my first few nights in the isolation unit of the intensive care wing.

My wonderful nurse casually asked me if I knew what my resting heart rate was. I said that I didn’t know what a ‘resting heart rate’ was, so she explained. “Why do you ask?” she said. Well, I needed at this point to know. She replied by asking if I had ever been an athlete. Well, those who know me will realise the effect that such a question would have on me, even in my sick bed. I promise you that laughing so hard when you are covered in wires, tubes and needles is not a good idea. She got the message though, and laughed herself.

The truth soon emerged, and it turns out that I, in fact, have the resting heart rate of an athlete – how? I’m damned if I know.

The doctor then arrived, and my nurse passed on to him that I was about as athletic as a root vegetable. He did that doctory-thing of nodding and shaking his head, before turning to me and announcing in cool tones: “So Andrew, did you know that you have sleep apnoea?”
I didn’t know. I mean, I didn’t even know that sleep apnoea existed let alone what it was, so there was little chance of me knowing that I have it.

“What is it, doctor?” A reasonable question, I thought, given the circumstances.

“Well, it means that when you’re asleep, you stop breathing.” And with this, he busied himself with my chart, adjusted my oxygen flow and antibiotics, smiled… and left.

Fortunately, I was pretty sedated so I didn’t panic.

“Laughing so hard when you are covered in wires, tubes and needles is not a good idea”

By the time I was discharged I had pretty much forgotten a lot of what had happened over those scary days. Then, a letter arrived on my doormat in which there was a full doctor’s report that included the words ‘sleep apnoea’.

Of course, it stirred a memory and a new fear. What was it?

What does it do? Is it dangerous?

I went online. BIG MISTAKE.

Online, I learned far too much about sleep apnoea. I mean, far too much! And given that I was doing pretty well not knowing that I had it, I had to steel myself into thinking that I could just get on with my life and pretend that nothing was amiss.

Of course, it’s hard to stop reading about stuff online and giving yourself the heebie jeebies, but when I got to the words ‘mandibular advancement splint’ and ‘uvulopalatopharyngoplasty’, I knew that I had to stop. Or, rather, knew that I SHOULD stop, which of course I didn’t, and soon came upon a list of symptoms resulting from sleep apnoea that included moodiness, belligerence, and a decrease in attentiveness and drive. I ask you! Me – moody, belligerent, inattentive? Now, where was I…

So now I know: I wake in the night because I stop breathing.

I seem to get through it for now, and maybe one day I will simply stop breathing and not wake up and start again. After all, isn’t stopping breathing God’s way of telling you it’s time to stop living? If I believed in a god, that might almost be comforting.

Follow me: @latestandrew