Humbling Reminders

I'm seriously a spoiled person.  I'm sitting here clicking on Logo's site, angry because it's down for maintenance and I can't watch Drag Race.  This is silly because, let's face it, the fact that I get to see this is a nice thing, but not something necessary in my life.

What is necessary in my life is electricity. Mine was out for about three hours last night. As I have the power outage number on my phone, I was able to call it in quickly. I also had some light provided by flashlights and my Kindle. However, this didn't help all the rest of the stuff that I need electricity for . . . such as my oxygen and my CPAP.

See, when you have a problem solved via a machine, you begin to mistakenly think it's truly solved. Oh, I can sleep now, all through the night with no problems and no issues.  It's so easy to deceive yourself. With no power, I went to bed early, as I really had nothing to do without my internetz, and thought I could just catch up on a few hours of sleep.

How wrong I was.  No power means no CPAP, so all of my sleep issues were in full swing.  I choked. I kept waking up.  I never could get anything close to real sleep. The nightmare that was my life before my machine was suddenly my reality. And, actually, it's my reality all the time. I just have something that keeps me from it.

It was really humbling to remember how bad my life had been.  As I laid there, after I finally gave up on sleeping, I thought about my grandfather and how he'd just fall asleep at the drop of a hat, how he had cup after cup of coffee to try and keep himself awake enough to function.  I thought about my mom and how she died in her sleep, her body so exhausted it finally just stopped.

I think mostly, I just thought about all the years of hell I went through because of this. I would leave for my college classes two hours early so I could stop in the middle of the drive and sleep for a while.  If I didn't do that, I would literally have to fight to stay awake. I think I literally missed most of my 20s because I was trying to catch up on my sleep. I was so exhausted all the time.

And now everything is different.  I sleep. I have days where I stay awake all day.  Mind you, most of the time, I still nap, but from what I've been told, that's because my body is in sleep debt and it may take a long time to right my system.   However,  the rest of the time, I'm alert. I know what's happening. I'm not craving sleep or fighting to keep myself awake. It's nice.

Of course, the reality is, the difference is only made possible by a machine. Losing weight helps, but given my family's history, it won't help completely. Even the skinny people have this disorder. The machine keeps me sleeping and, really, is helping me to have a life now.

So, I am grateful for the technology that developed my CPAP. I am grateful for the electricity that allows the machine to run. I am grateful to the doctors who helped me to get this and grateful to the medical supply company who is very good to me and helps me keep my machine running. I am so thankful for all of this because last night I was reminded of how bad things could be for me. I'm a lucky girl . . . even if Logo IS still down.