My #hamr Weekend Update

I'm writing this evening because unseasonable rain brought an
unusually calm Saturday evening. We are camping out on the couch as
Radio Dawg is curled up in the zone that dogs only understand that is
totally zonked. Kimberly is reading one of her fave magazines to the
right of me and there is a break in the weather when our scrub jays
take a seventh inning stretch.

I wrote a few months ago about my mid-life physical. It was an
adventure that took me into a CATH lab for a serious look at coronary
artery disease. Ultimately, through the process of elimination, my
health adventure lead to a sleep study then another very recent sleep
study. I was diagnosed with sleep apnea where obstructed breathing
wrecked havoc on my blood oxygen saturation. My waking life is much
like living through foggy days sometimes mild, sometimes thick and
heavy.

The lack of restorative sleep where one successfully completes each
sleep stage accumulates like a snowball in reverse. Additionally,
sleep apnea effects one's physiology increasing risk factors for heart
attack and stroke. Also, one's psychology is effected from increased
anxiety to clinical depression; the constellation of sleep apnea
symptons deeply impacts one's lifestyle and productivity.

Recently, my symptoms took a severe course and I was devastated,
literally out of commission for lack of restorative sleep. My
continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) titration was a resounding
success. I felt different after a few hours of CPAP breathing, really
different like normal sleep different! However, our insurance industry
moves at the speed of its paperwork and levels of authorization, and
it is not warp speed either.

I'm hopeful that this Friday, we will have a new friend in the house,
through thick and thin and CPAP. I'll have a weekend to acclimatize
and begin a new adventure!

Sleep well and prosper, 73.