Adventures with Sleep Apnea
Last night, I was being chased in a forest by witches, which always pairs well with chronic nighttime anxiety.
My first clue was the demonic cackling in the air. My second clue was the feeling of dead, grimy fingernails scraping against my flesh as I barreled through the wilderness.
I ran as fast as my little feet could take me, but I could tell by the swishing and slapping of capes against brooms that the witches were gaining on me. The cackling got louder and louder until I woke up in a sweat, my necklace tangled around my neck.
I stared into the blackness for a moment, the forest slowly fading away until my ceiling fan appeared. I was in my bed. It was just a dream.
But then I heard it again, that shrieking, blood-chilling cackle…
…of my husband's sleep apnea machine, no longer resting on his face but instead flipped around, pointing its headwinds directly at me. Eeeeeeeeeee it shrieked again. Still shaking from adrenaline, I reached for my airpods and put on the first podcast I could find before falling asleep again.
It’s basically impossible to not have nightmares when you sleep next to a machine that sounds like Voldemort speaking parseltongue.
The most unsettling thing about sleep apnea machines is that they’re designed to push out air when you’re not breathing on your own, which means every time I dream that I’m being cursed by the Dark Lord himself, my husband is simultaneously trying to suffocate himself in his sleep.
And in case you ever use a machine, or have a spouse who uses one. No one ever talks about how when you use an apnea machine, your body basically becomes a chamber for excess air, and all that air has to come out SOMEHOW. So, as the innocent bystander in this situation, be prepared not only for Satan’s mixed tape during the night, but also to be occasionally woken up in the morning by a post-apnea fartnado echoing from the kitchen while your spouse is brewing his french roast.
Have I tried other methods to buffer the noise? Of course. I sometimes sleep with the tv on which helps, but if we’re watching The Simpsons on cable for nostalgic purposes, it usually defaults to Fox News at about 4 AM and I’d rather have every night terror in the world as my husband descends to the seven circles of hell than subconsciously hear Fox News.
In fact, one night Fox News flipped on at 2 AM for no reason at all, and I thought about calling an exorcist because, clearly, my house was being haunted by a boomer in his seventies who roams my house from time to time when he’s not frequenting his favorite Home Depot. He’s a nice ghost though, and he makes a mean burger and even fixes my sink from time to time, so I can’t complain.
