Like most older people in America, I’ve had a series of encounters with doctors and the health care system that have altered, improved, sometimes even saved my life, from open-heart surgery to the complex and thankless discoveries and work of primary care nurses to work with diabetes to the most recent issue, my diagnosis as having extreme and possibly life-threatening sleep apnea.

All of this, surprisingly, has made me healthier.

To me, the two most fascinating have been the heart surgery I witnessed on a big screen that showed the opening of a major artery to the heart in living time and color and the sleep apnea mask that has transformed my life.

Sleep apnea is a pervasive sleep disorder that causes people to stop breathing while sleeping, often many times a night.

I used to wake up exhausted, thinking I was sleeping but feeling as if I had not. Maria says I often woke up angry and unhappy.

Sleep apnea is a problem most often diagnosed in older people. There are tons of misconceptions about the respiratory issues around sleeping.

Like many people, I thought that I couldn’t have sleep apnea because I snored. I was shocked to learn that it was apparent that I had sleep apnea because I snored.

Snoring is a respiratory dysfunction, frequently frequent urinating during the night. Both suggest sleep apnea. So is sleeplessness, a problem I’ve had my whole life.

Sleep apnea treatment usually involves studying over one or two nights in a sleep lab, followed by wearing masks at night connected to small respirators that take over the patient’s breathing during the night and regulate it.

My lab study recorded a total of 121 apnea events – 34.7 an hour. My breathing was interrupted on average of 79.6 times an hour.

A total of 151 arousals were observed during the analysis period, 116 respiratory arousals, 13 leg movement arousal, 19 spontaneous arousal, and three snoring arousals.

Every arousal woke me up or interrupted my breathing. One night, a doctor told me, one of those breathing interruptions could be my last. I also have heart disease.

I’ve had sleep problems all of my life, ever since wetting the bed until I was well into my teens. I didn’t understand at first why I had to go to the bathroom up to a dozen times a night even as I grew older; I assumed it was old age. I don’t recall ever sleeping more than two or three hours at a time or more than three or four hours a night.

When I saw a urologist, the first thing he said to me was that he thought I had sleep apnea. I didn’t believe him or, put more honestly, I didn’t want to consider him.

I was vain; I didn’t want Maria to look at me at night while I was wearing a “Darth Vader” mask, as I put it. What about having a sex life?

Six months later, exhausted and worried, I went to see a pulmonologist. He stunned me by telling me I was lucky to be alive and needed to wear an apnea mask.

One of the many things I did not understand was that every time I stopped breathing in the night, the heart got aroused and notified my bladder that there was an emergency. The bladder did what the bladder did in emergencies and urinated.

I’ve had a mask for several months, and this week, after a second lab sleepover, the show was adjusted. It was a good fit, and it is working beautifully.

Over the past week, I’ve slept an average of 6-7 hours a night (I go to bed between midnight and 1 a.m., although that is changing, and go to the bathroom once, sometimes twice a night, usually not at all.

Between sleeping and the quieting of the bladder, my life has been transformed. I woke up alert and refreshed. The drowsiness I often felt from sleeplessness is gone in the daytime.

 

Maria says I wake up cheerfully and rested.

I sleep right away and usually stay asleep until sunlight floods our bedroom. I give thanks every night for this transformation. The doctors and lab techs say using an apnea mask is simple. It is not simple, at least not at first.

But it is effective.

I’ve lived for 74 years and never worn a mask at night; it took weeks to get used to the feeling and also to be breathing through a mask. I went through three different sizes, shapes, and comfort levels. After three tries, I’ve got the right one.

It’s easy to put on – my mask is slight and narrow, it only covers the nose – I go to sleep within seconds or minutes. I listen to music or sleep stories on the app Calm and go right to sleep if I wake up.

I’m used to the mask now; the tube is flexible and can be bought to go up to 10 feet. When I wake up, I don’t even know I have a mask on my face.

I can cuddle up with Maria as often and closely as I want, and when I want to have sex, I take the make-off until it’s done.

Whatever disruptions I feel from the mask experience (insurance pays for the masks to be replaced every six months) is more than compensated by sleeping well and sleeping through the night, a radically new experience for me. I can feel the gratitude of my heart, my bladder, and the rest of my body.

I recommend the process to anyone experiencing anxiety at night or sleepiness, or persistent snoring.  But I don’t tell other people what to do. By the way: Maria sleeps a lot better too because I’m not getting up ten times a night or snoring.

You know what that means…