It was a question I became used to receiving over the decades. When my husband would take a business trip with an associate or go on a hunting trip with buddies, I would be inundated with , "Do you have trouble sleeping with his snoring?" I would shrug my shoulders.
One man went so far as to say, "Your husband sucks the paint off the walls while he is sleeping." I actually liked that one. The imagery was good.
But the fact remained that I had never once in 38 years of marriage had an issue with him snorting and bellowing into the darkness. I had grown up with a father who snored so loudly, I could often hear it in my bedroom through their closed door. I was a deep sleeper. According to him, I too snored. Snoring was a part of life, and for some reason my sleep patterns adjusted to loud rumbling. What I did not adjust to over the years as we aged was my husband's lack of snoring. He began to stop and then start up again.
Friends who had this same issue told him it was sleep apnea. They marveled at the invention they wore each night leaving them feeling refreshed each morning. But he evaded the issue until his open-heart surgery revealed a serious case of sleep apnea that likely had and would continue to cause damage to his heart and arteries if left unaddressed.
So, as any aggravated, overly protective wife would do, I dragged us both to the sleep study people. I did not need the angiogram when I tried to get one booked, so he would get the procedure done. My snores were allergy related, but if it got him to go, so be it.
Turns out we both have breathing issues. I don't have sleep apnea, but something. My breathing slows a bit, or does everybody's, so we all get a very expensive machine that takes up most of your nightstand? I pride myself on decorating our home. Beside my husband's side of the bed was a cute set of drawers with a lamp, a Bible, a small air cleansing plant, and a framed picture of our four sons. Now there is this large, bulky, ugly machine that is supposed to make him healthier and live a longer life. I can't leave that part out.
But for better or worse and terrible eyesores by each of our bedsides we both partook in the nightly science-fiction experiment. We put on masks with a roaring machine and began to breathe through a tube. For the first time in 38 years, I could not sleep. There was a hospital mask stuck to my face.
It took about a week for me to devise a plan that after he would fall asleep, I would slip off my mask to get rest and stop dreaming about being strangled. But the wind still blew in the dark bedroom, and old habits were continuing to die hard. Just as I overcame my night sweats this!
So, this is this season? Welcome to the windstorm and nightstand eyesores. The paint on the walls is staying intact, and hopefully modern medicine will once again add to our years. Like everything, it is still a work in progress.
