Well it's been ten nights and, so far, the best I can say is that my sleep is at about the same level it was before I started using the machine. The worst I can say? It has transformed sleeping from a relaxing goal unto itself to a chore that must be done each night.
I no longer look forward to going to sleep, to relaxing on my king size bed, wrapping myself up in my covers, finding that really comfy position, letting my mind wander into daydreams for a couple of minutes before falling unconscious. No, instead I look on it like doing laundry or buying groceries. It's a task, a chore I have to do in order to maintain my quality of life.
I no longer get to sprawl and starfish across my king size bed. With a hose tethering me to the nightstand I might as well sleep on a twin, or even a cot. Yes, the hose is six feet long, but that's just long enough to reach from the nightstand to my face if I happen to be facing away from it.
Not that ever do face away from it, or not for very long. I can no longer roll around and find the most comfortable position to sleep in, now I can only sleep on my back. The one position I've never been able to sleep in my whole life, beyond napping for twenty minutes, is now the only position available to me. Sleeping on my side doesn't work because I cannot find any position that doesn't cause the nasal mask to slip off, ever so slightly, and break the seal, completely invalidation the machine's purpose. Sleeping on my stomach, my favorite position, is utterly impossible.
I can no longer just drop my clothes into the laundry hamper and crawl into bed. No, now I have to check the level of distilled water in the machine first and fill it up if it's low, fighting with a four gallon jug of distilled water that was never designed to pour, putting the machine back together before I can finally try to rest.
I still feel just as tired as I always have when I get up each morning. I still have to consciously direct my routine each morning with deliberate effort. It'd be easy to say I'm just not a morning person, but it doesn't improve through the day. Nothing comes easy, everything has to be a deliberate, focused effort.
I still fall asleep during the day, particularly in the afternoon sitting at my desk. I've fought against my natural routine to nap as soon as I get home for the past week specifically so I'll be as tired as possible when I finally go to bed. It seems the only way I can fall asleep with the machine attached to my face is to be as tired as possible.
I no longer fall asleep within minutes of closing my eyes. Now it's twenty minutes or more of doing my best to ignore the hose pushing air into my nose. It's twenty minutes or more of deliberately not looking at the clock and noting how much sleep I'm not getting. Twenty minutes of trying to think of anything else I can to distract my brain long enough to let it finally fall unconscious.
Even then it doesn't work for more than a few hours. I think three hours is the longest I've managed to sleep with the machine on. I keep it on my face as long as I can in the hopes that I'll become increasingly used to it, but I still end up turning the machine off in the small hours of the morning in order to get a couple of hours of sleep before I have to get up for work. It's like a mechanized form of insomnia that, thankfully, has an off switch.
I'm struggling very hard with a lot of disappointment right now. I had high hopes for this machine. I didn't realize quite how high my hopes were until they started to get dashed. I really, really wanted to wake up. I wanted to know what it felt like to get up in the morning and not feel tired. I didn't want a kick of glee or anything, just a feeling of being refreshed and rested would be nice. A zen moment of Not Tired for once in my life.
I do get to dream deeply on occasion, during those two or three hours where I can actually sleep on my back with a hose strapped to my face, and I'm sure that means I'm reaching a deeper level of sleep than I was before, but I'm not convinced the cost is worth the reward. I'm sure it would eventually reduce my blood pressure, but would that offset the increased blood pressure I get with wrestling with the damned thing the rest of the night?
I still try, though, and I still want this damned thing to work. I keep hoping for a breakthrough moment, a single night where I sleep all the way through as I never have before. In fact I'm so hopeful that even if I don't get a breakthrough this weekend I'm still going to ask the salesman if I can keep trying it for another week or two. I have an appointment on Tuesday morning to bring the machine back in and have it's data analyzed. At that point the salesman may ask if I want to buy it, but unless I get a breakthrough I don't think I can make a decision to Buy or Not Buy yet. I want to give it a solid chance to make a difference before I give up. The whole reason I haven't given up before now is because I need to know for certain if this won't work. If I give up too soon I'll always wonder if maybe it might have worked if I'd just given it a little longer.
But right now... if I had to make a decision right here and now, if I had to either hand the machine back or pay $2,500 to keep it for the rest of my life, along with the associated maintenance costs, I'd just hand it back. Paying money to sleep no better than before while turning what used to be a relaxing joy into a tiresome chore? No thanks. But if the salesman is willing to let me try another week or two I'll keep giving it a chance. So many people have told me how beneficial it's supposed to be I'm still holding out hope that it might be true. Maybe I just haven't gotten used to it yet.
I no longer look forward to going to sleep, to relaxing on my king size bed, wrapping myself up in my covers, finding that really comfy position, letting my mind wander into daydreams for a couple of minutes before falling unconscious. No, instead I look on it like doing laundry or buying groceries. It's a task, a chore I have to do in order to maintain my quality of life.
I no longer get to sprawl and starfish across my king size bed. With a hose tethering me to the nightstand I might as well sleep on a twin, or even a cot. Yes, the hose is six feet long, but that's just long enough to reach from the nightstand to my face if I happen to be facing away from it.
Not that ever do face away from it, or not for very long. I can no longer roll around and find the most comfortable position to sleep in, now I can only sleep on my back. The one position I've never been able to sleep in my whole life, beyond napping for twenty minutes, is now the only position available to me. Sleeping on my side doesn't work because I cannot find any position that doesn't cause the nasal mask to slip off, ever so slightly, and break the seal, completely invalidation the machine's purpose. Sleeping on my stomach, my favorite position, is utterly impossible.
I can no longer just drop my clothes into the laundry hamper and crawl into bed. No, now I have to check the level of distilled water in the machine first and fill it up if it's low, fighting with a four gallon jug of distilled water that was never designed to pour, putting the machine back together before I can finally try to rest.
I still feel just as tired as I always have when I get up each morning. I still have to consciously direct my routine each morning with deliberate effort. It'd be easy to say I'm just not a morning person, but it doesn't improve through the day. Nothing comes easy, everything has to be a deliberate, focused effort.
I still fall asleep during the day, particularly in the afternoon sitting at my desk. I've fought against my natural routine to nap as soon as I get home for the past week specifically so I'll be as tired as possible when I finally go to bed. It seems the only way I can fall asleep with the machine attached to my face is to be as tired as possible.
I no longer fall asleep within minutes of closing my eyes. Now it's twenty minutes or more of doing my best to ignore the hose pushing air into my nose. It's twenty minutes or more of deliberately not looking at the clock and noting how much sleep I'm not getting. Twenty minutes of trying to think of anything else I can to distract my brain long enough to let it finally fall unconscious.
Even then it doesn't work for more than a few hours. I think three hours is the longest I've managed to sleep with the machine on. I keep it on my face as long as I can in the hopes that I'll become increasingly used to it, but I still end up turning the machine off in the small hours of the morning in order to get a couple of hours of sleep before I have to get up for work. It's like a mechanized form of insomnia that, thankfully, has an off switch.
I'm struggling very hard with a lot of disappointment right now. I had high hopes for this machine. I didn't realize quite how high my hopes were until they started to get dashed. I really, really wanted to wake up. I wanted to know what it felt like to get up in the morning and not feel tired. I didn't want a kick of glee or anything, just a feeling of being refreshed and rested would be nice. A zen moment of Not Tired for once in my life.
I do get to dream deeply on occasion, during those two or three hours where I can actually sleep on my back with a hose strapped to my face, and I'm sure that means I'm reaching a deeper level of sleep than I was before, but I'm not convinced the cost is worth the reward. I'm sure it would eventually reduce my blood pressure, but would that offset the increased blood pressure I get with wrestling with the damned thing the rest of the night?
I still try, though, and I still want this damned thing to work. I keep hoping for a breakthrough moment, a single night where I sleep all the way through as I never have before. In fact I'm so hopeful that even if I don't get a breakthrough this weekend I'm still going to ask the salesman if I can keep trying it for another week or two. I have an appointment on Tuesday morning to bring the machine back in and have it's data analyzed. At that point the salesman may ask if I want to buy it, but unless I get a breakthrough I don't think I can make a decision to Buy or Not Buy yet. I want to give it a solid chance to make a difference before I give up. The whole reason I haven't given up before now is because I need to know for certain if this won't work. If I give up too soon I'll always wonder if maybe it might have worked if I'd just given it a little longer.
But right now... if I had to make a decision right here and now, if I had to either hand the machine back or pay $2,500 to keep it for the rest of my life, along with the associated maintenance costs, I'd just hand it back. Paying money to sleep no better than before while turning what used to be a relaxing joy into a tiresome chore? No thanks. But if the salesman is willing to let me try another week or two I'll keep giving it a chance. So many people have told me how beneficial it's supposed to be I'm still holding out hope that it might be true. Maybe I just haven't gotten used to it yet.