My main problem when I started using it was waking up with a backache in the morning. Painful until I'd had a bath after which it went away. Strange, connected to a pump to sleep at night, but it works and given the alternative, I have no complaints.

I'd never heard of sleep apnea until a little over a year ago when I mentioned to my doctor that I was unusually tired even after what was for me more than enough hours of sleep. Did I tend to wake up at night? Yes, to take a pee. I thought it had to do with going over 50. Same with the flashes of memory loss. Couldn't remember a name and then it would come back some hours later. Did I remember my dreams? Yes, come to think of it, particularly in the morning before I got up, but often during the night as well, sorting them out while I was staring into the toilet. Did I snore? Yes. He already knew I had high blood pressure, have had it since I was 30, but controlled with medication.

All of these, it turns out (throw in ulcers and a couple of other things), are associated with sleep apnea. Your throat closes up when you're asleep and you stop breathing, your body says "Whoa, Nellie!" and wakes you up. If this happens twenty or more times an hour you're at the serious/dangerous level and you need to take care of it, since it can contribute to all the above plus an early death. Happy thought. I stopped breathing 80 times an hour, more than once a minute. Hence, no deep sleep, tired all the time, snored like a freight, forgot people's names and peed a lot. Sir Peed 'A Lot.

It took them a while, but I finally got outfitted with the CPAP, got over the back pain after two or three months, stopped (slowly, but surely) forgetting names, had a really big uptick in energy (Amazing difference. No way I could work and write this daily journal in the evening without it.), had the blood pressure drop, stopped waking up in the night to take a pee (Well, actually, I still do that, but not as often. It's not the beer, its the diet Coke.) and found life much more interesting. Worth getting up and getting out and about.

The insidious part was how things had gone down hill for so long without sitting up and noticing and telling someone about it. I finally talked to the doctor (I was there on other business.) and he sent me to the sleep clinic. The sleep clinic sent me to a surgeon in Palo Alto, who trimmed back the palate and then sent me in for another sleep test to check the results. He told me there was little or no chance this would cure the problem. I would need an operation that would trim the back of the tongue as well. He'd wanted to do both at the same time (If you're in there for 20 minutes, you might as well be in there for 40.), but the insurance company wouldn't allow it. Said the first one would fix it, didn't need the second. Right.

There's a third one after that and that's the one that will probably get me off my lovely, wonderful to travel with, purrs like a kitten machine. They actually move the jaw forward. A three hour operation instead of a 20 minute procedure, but the recovery is less painful and its much easier unless something goes wrong under the knife (I guess you have to think about it, something goes wrong under the knife, the fork, or the spoon.). A pain in the, um, throat, but if it cures the sleep problem it's a no brainer: Get it done while the health insurance is still in force. Get it all done by the end of this year and live happily ever after whenever after arrives.

The ten days I didn't use it to prepare for the test? Started to get tired. Started to get fuzzier and fuzzier as I wrote this thing, a little voice saying: "Go to bed, dream pleasant (and vivid) dreams, why do you write this stuff?"

Slept a lot of hours last night. Took a nap this morning. Read some journals, watched the '49ers for their first half, took a nap, then grabbed a camera and took the bus to Berkeley. Wandered around with the camera, took some pictures (nothing worth crowing about), felt good for the walk, took BART to MacArthur Station and then caught another train back to my station at Rockridge. Wandered around some more, bought some cat food, returned home and fixed dinner. Nice finish to a day of poking around on the bus and the BART. Back to Palo Alto. Soon, I hope.