Yesterday was a horribly rough day. The night before, my sleep was totally fragmented as hell. Air kept getting trapped in my mouth several times. I finally took off the CPAP, but that made things worse. I wasn’t struggling to breathe through my nose—it was that my throat kept closing. I don’t know why, but sometimes the sleep apnea is worse. Sometimes I can sleep several hours with nothing but a nose strip, and other times I can’t even nap without gasping for air. I was woken up dozens of times, and by the time I finally got up, I was utterly exhausted. Despite how wiped out I was, I couldn’t nap at all. I did have to take a bunch of lay-down breaks throughout the day, though.

On top of everything, I’ve been waking up more often with hip pain. I suspect it’s because the tubes in the waterbed have shifted again. Maybe it’s arthritis coming on, but I doubt it. Within the next few months, we should be able to swap them out for a bladder and get a more uniform surface. I’d still rather sleep on an uneven waterbed than a regular bed. Ever since I got this thing, I haven’t had any back pain.

When I first got into bed, I was worried because my mask started whistling like the tea kettle from hell. Turned out I forgot to secure the harness at the back after slipping it on. 

I’m just tired of not being able to treat myself! I can’t take enough thyroid medicine to get into the target range to maybe lose weight and hopefully ease the sleep apnea. How can I get better if I can’t help myself? It feels like nothing I do makes a difference. Still, it’s hard to resist that natural instinct to try anything I can think of. Last night was slightly better with only a few leaks, and my AHI score was 2. I know there’s no magic setting to stop air from getting trapped in my mouth, so now it’s off to see a new pulmonologist who’s only five miles away. Believe it or not, I actually got an appointment for the end of this month. I thought I’d be stuck waiting for months.

What worries me is whether we can find a sleep dentist who takes my insurance. The last thing I want is to have to wait until next year just to see if my insurance changes to something they’ll accept, since it changes every year. 

It’s just quite a coincidence that I said that if something’s cursing my sleep, it would find a workaround after I got the CPAP. I finally get one, find I can tolerate it, and now I’ve got mouth farts and air getting trapped in my mouth when it’s taped. So I guess the next step is to prevent me from getting a mouth guard if it can help or to make sure I have problems with that, too. Right?

Also, coincidentally, it’s been dry now that I’m mostly on days, but in a couple of days, it’s going to be stormy day after day. I thought about forcing myself to get up early in the morning, but honestly, if I’m going to feel exhausted no matter what, what difference does it make whether I’m being woken by alarms or storms or a CPAP? Forcing my schedule into something it’s not will just make things worse. I don’t run on a 24-hour clock. Mine’s 25 hours and 36 minutes.

At least the new area rug for the living room came and it’s nice and soft. I’m a little worried the robot vacuum’s going to struggle getting on and off it, which might mean I have to vacuum the room myself, making my life harder with all this fatigue. Still, it’s worth it to keep my feet from getting shredded by this awful Berber carpet.

The new ankle bracelet is delicate and shiny. It’s sterling silver, so it’ll tarnish eventually but it fits perfectly and is comfortable.

The Quest 3S came yesterday, and it’s definitely better than the 2, but not quite as good as the 3. Damn, do I need new glasses, though! That’s next up on the list, and then I’ll use the 3.