Trevor's Tales

NO, I'm not dead or in gaol, I'm alive and if not exactly kicking, still managing to place one foot in front of the other in an effort to keep moving.

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I've got sleep apnea apparently. I thought it was depression for a while. It leaves me more tired when I wake up in the morning than I was when I went to bed. It's very frustrating and it has caused my one time, fully alert brain, to go into standby mode during the day. My concentration is shot, I don't read anything, I haven't written a thing since Christmas and I can't find the enthusiasm to do any of the things that I once enjoyed. Mrs TBelshaw is delighted at certain aspects of this.

It's been creeping up on me for years but the last few months have been particularly difficult. I think about writing, I even have one or two ideas, but when the time comes to put them down on cyber paper, I only manage a couple of lines before I shut the word processor down and head for the mind numbing monotony of daytime TV. I don't take any of it in, the TV is stuck on Sky News but it could be on the knitting channel for all I care.

It's very strange, I don't fall asleep at all, I don't feel the need to, I can drive and shop albeit in a sort of robotic mode. I walk the dogs but find it increasingly difficult to gather enough enthusiasm for much else.

A few weeks ago I finally decided to do something about it and mentioned my symptoms to the doctor while I was in for my annual diabetes check-up. He sent off a request and a month later I received a letter from the hospital demanding my presence at the sleep clinic.
I packed my pj's and a spare pair of pants, bunged in some socks and after a 20 minute reset of my brain, my diabetic medication and a toothbrush.

We have a nifty park and ride system in place for drivers going to the Queens Medical Centre and all I had to do was drive a couple of miles, park up my car and jump onto one of the buses to the QMC. They run every ten minutes so it's not a long wait and there are no charges either. (Something that will make DavidR extremely jealous.)

On the bus I finally read the letter they had sent. It informed me that this was just a registration process and that I wouldn't need to bring anything with me as I would be in and out in minutes.
I rolled my eyes at the backpack sat beside me and blamed the wife for not filling me in with the relevant details.
Thirty minutes later I was on my way home with a finger pulse meter that would log my sleep patterns overnight, easy peasy, even I can put a finger clip on.

Next day I had to return their equipment and once again I was back home within the hour praising the NHS to anyone who would listen and believing that at last, I was on the way to resolving my problems.
It took two weeks for them to get back to me. I DO have sleep apnea and I DO stop breathing a worrying eight times an hour. I had 164 peaks on my chart which meant I was getting virtually no REM sleep at all.
Now, I quite like Michael Stipe but I don't want to be listening to him churning out his hits all night long, Pink Floyd I could stand, but that wasn't on offer.

So, I'm home again complete with night breathing apparatus, which consists of a small air pump -come computer, a long hose and a Darth Vader mask. Thankfully I don't have to wear the cloak and boots to bed as well.
I also have the finger pulse meter thingy again; I had enough trouble sleeping with that on last time, I kept wondering if it was recording me properly so I looked at it every five minutes for at least 2 hours, no wonder it recorded a dodgy pattern.

Anyway, tonight I'll drive the wife nuts by saying things like, 'Yes my master' and 'Luke, I'm your father.' She'll think my snoring and 20 second gaps in breathing before choking back to life, were things worth holding on to by the morning.

Oh yeah,
Best of British Magazine have written to me regarding one of the articles they were going to publish. I last heard from them in January.
At the time they accepted all 3 of my submissions although one was 3100 words long. I offered to cut it into two at the time but they said 'no, it's fine as it is.' Well it isn't fine any longer apparently as I've had a letter from them today asking me to edit it down to two 1200 word pieces.
When I've donned the pilot's mask for a few nights I'll do just that.