SLEEP APNEA MAKES ME GURGLE AND FART - SO?

I was quite surprised several weeks ago after finding out that I suffer quite badly with sleep apnea to find out how many of my own friends and acquaintances also suffer with some stage of it.

I am into my third or fourth week of wearing a full face sleep mask complete with humidifier/air hose. I am on the kind of machine that adjusts automatically to my breathing dysfunction while I am asleep. This has led to some very strange happenings throughout the night - well, mostly in the early mornings about 4;30 AM. Sometimes I am awakened by a gurgling sound of water condensation in the hose, sounding very much like some cartoon goldfish.

Other mornings I am awakened to winds coming down the hose at such a high rate that air is being forced against the soft edges of the rubber mask and erupting in disconcerting farting sounds coming off my cheeks. And I don't mean my nether cheeks, either!

My wife will be awakened by it about the same time I am and invariably will ask: "What are you doing??"

About a week ago I began to feel like I was getting more rest and was able to accomplish much during the day, including, I am proud to say, giving that damn bungalow I call my office a thorough cleaning. But the last two days I have been extremely tired and find it difficult to stay awake - even for rented movies that I have looked forward to viewing.

This friday I will be returning to my "sleep doctor" , computer card in hand from the machine and then I will see if all the gurgling and farting is doing me any good whatsoever.

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A couple of years ago we bought a high def TV - well, actually, we went through a living hell with the first high def purchase, a @#$%^&^% Hitachi. I wrote at length about it in this very blog and none of it was favorable. I will say it again: DO NOT BUY A HITACHI TELEVISION - THEY ARE HELL TO DEAL WITH IN STANDING BEHIND THEIR PRODUCT!

At or about the same time, I went away from using my C Band dish and we elected to go with Direct TV, yet another mistake as they are not only difficult to deal with but nickel and dime their customers to death. So we went back to the big dish and I bought a decoder for $350 which would allow us to get 5 channels of high definition TV - two HBO, two STARZ, and one Discovery.

This week, i tuned to G9 to watch some HBO in high definition and it had disappeared. I called my programmer to find that HBO had refused C Band permission to carry their signal. It has been a constant war against C Banders for years.

So today we signed up with DISH network. I am already in a cold sweat. I already have found that watching Eau Claire Channel 13, 18, and 48, off the little stick antenna on our garage brings in breath taking high definition picture. I have seen supposed high def on both Direct and Dish and I haven't been impressed with the signal but if you want morfe than six channels ----

I still am in a cold sweat.

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