My Near Future

This is a slightly messy post but it’s really really important to me.

After years of not sleeping, snoring like a mythological beast, occasionally startling her with gasps for air, and keeping my wife up at night in general, I finally made an appointment to see an ENT doctor. After an uncomfortable sinus cavity inspection, it turns out that I have a deviated septum on the right side of my nose. But that’s not all. He literally couldn’t even push the small lighted tube down my right nose into my throat. 100% closed. That and other nasal acrobatics led him to declare that when I breathe in and my nose is shut, my tonsils collapse in on my throat closing it 100%, preventing oxygen from going into my lungs.

A sleep study will be in my very near future, complete with myriad of electrodes and a night in a sleep clinic. It’s very likely that will be followed by a tonsil & uvula removal + deviated septum repair surgery this summer. The doctor did say the surgery is a brutal nasty thing to recover from. 2 weeks on heavy meds and nothing much to eat. I’m more than ready. I really can’t live like a zombie anymore. I rely on coffee and Coke to get me through the day. When I get home at night, I’m spent. I’m amazed I’ve been functioning like this and feel terrible for subjecting my wife to this for so long. No more.

I wonder how different my life will be with the benefit of normal levels of oxygen. More energy, more interest in everything? I hope so. I just feel so exhausted all the time. I had “stop snoring” on my Life List, and feel very happy that I’m closing in on this.