Slept horribly yet again and still feel that something more sinister than sleep apnea is going on. The hybrid is too leaky, so I went back to the pillow and used tape. A few hours into my sleep, I took the mask and the tape that had loosened off after at least two leaks. All night I experienced fragmented sleep, waking up at least half a dozen times and a few times with night sweats. There were a couple of times I thought I was going to have trouble falling back asleep.

I took melatonin before bed, and therefore I had some pretty vivid and detailed dreams, but nothing bad. A couple of hours before I got up, I used the bathroom and then put the pillow back on without tape if only to drive more air up my nose because it was stuffy. I slept for a little over an hour and don't remember any leak during this time.

Although I did manage to go out to Publix, I am pretty tired today—maybe not quite as bad as yesterday but bad enough. I'm no longer sure what to think, but I do know I'm tired of trying to figure out my health problems. Never once in my life did I say I wanted to make a career out of suffering and having to try to guess what could be wrong with me and hope to solve it. I just can't keep taking this year after year. This has gotten to be way too much, way more than I can handle.

If a CPAP isn't right for me, I have no other options. I can't just request a mouthguard when there are no sleep dentists in network, and I can't just run out and get the Inspire implanted as quickly as I can request a medication refill. It would take the better part of the year for something that may or may not help, and I don't think I can hold out that long. I truly believe without a doubt that there is no end to my suffering. Even if this was resolved, there would just be something else. As soon as the worst of the hormonal hell settled down, on came the sleep apnea.

But as I said, I don't think that's my only problem. I looked up everything else it could possibly be, and while one report says fragmented sleep is normal at my age, others say it's not and it's caused by certain things. I worry that it is a normal fact of aging because Tom has fragmented sleep. The difference is that, for some reason, my body can't handle it like his can, which makes me think I could very well have the chronic fatigue I’ve feared and suspected I could have for quite a while now.

Stress can cause fragmented sleep, but I don't think that's my problem in this case. Stress has affected my sleep at times, even when I was young, yet I wasn't this exhausted. I thought it was connected to the sleep apnea, but if the events are down, why aren't the frags down? That leaves heart issues, and I just can't see that. That’s the last thing I see being the culprit, along with cancers of any kind. All I see at this point is chronic fatigue, hopelessness, and no end in sight.

After reading someone else's entry, I did a little research, and there's this guy who believes in 9-year cycles, and then other reports that suggest you go through 7-year cycles continuously throughout life. I thought back to most of my adult life and the times that were worse than others and then the times that were better than others, and I don't see a pattern. Let me break it down in print and see if anything jumps out at me, starting in 1992 when I left New England:

• 1992–1999 (8) was mostly good if you eliminate the loud freeloaders next to us.
  
  

• 2000–2004 (4) was mostly bad. I got legally screwed by the welfare bums and then we lost our Arizona house, although these two instances were not connected.
  
  

• 2005–2007 (2) was mostly good as I was doing a lot of sweepstakes winning in Oregon, and Tom could walk to work in just a few minutes.
  
  

• 2008–2011 (3) was mostly bad, then in Cali, due to the recession.
  
  

• 2012–2013 (1) was better as our finances improved and we bought a house.
  
  

• 2014–now (11) has been mostly bad as I went through hormonal hell from 2014 to 2021 when the sleep apnea/fatigue took over shortly before we moved to Florida. One was barely finished before the other one started.

If I'm counting right, this comes to only 11 good years and 18 bad years. This isn't exactly encouraging. This also isn't to say that there weren't some bad moments during the better times and that there haven't been some good moments during the shitty times, but more like an overall picture.

Tom is cleaning the oven now and it stinks. I've got to change the rat’s cage later.

Speaking of Miss Tink, I had two fun dreams with her in them. In one dream, we were in a hotel somewhere and although she couldn't hop around as much as when she was younger and before she got her tumor, she was having a blast exploring the new place and running around.

The other one took place in the Phoenix house. She was in the back room, and Tom entered the back door and got down on the floor to play with her. I had just stepped out from where the bedrooms were and looked through the kitchen into the back room from the living room. I hit the floor, and she came charging through the kitchen and licked my face affectionately.

In another dream, I was playing with someone’s pet mice, and then I was with an older guy at some diner. We were getting something to go, and he seemed in a hurry, but I couldn't figure out the menu because I'd never heard of anything on it.

Then I said something totally incorrect in Spanish and had a long, detailed dream with Doc A in it. Actually, it was two separate dreams, just like with the rat. The first time around, I was staying with her, although I don't know why or for how long. I was helping her fold laundry and we were talking about trivial things. Eventually, Gloria Estefan came up and I told her I once had a huge girl crush on her but later lost all respect for her when she turned out to be a bigot when her daughter came out.

Then I had to use the bathroom, and she was directing me to a bathroom I must not have normally used because I didn't seem to know where it was. I went in the direction she told me to go, but couldn't find it. Then she said, “No, it's over there,” so I went a different direction, and I still couldn't find this bathroom.

In the other dream, she was napping on a couch and then stirred awake when I entered the room. She said she had a dream about being in Times Square. I asked if she was going back to sleep and she said yes because she wanted to get back to Times Square, LOL.