I feel like absolute shit. Before I get into that, I would be pretty frustrated if I had energy and felt good and was eager to get back on with my book, because he’s up later than usual. He tends to stay up later when I’m crashing around midnight, give or take a few hours. I hope we’re not on the verge of needing to replace the refrigerator. Yeah, that’s why he’s up later tonight.

The people before us were not only filthy, but they didn’t take care of things well. Ice built up on the coils and wires, so he had to move stuff into the refrigerator after picking up some ice on the way back from his eye appointment to keep it as cold as possible, and then pull off panels in the freezer to melt ice with a hair dryer. It can take 24 hours to get back to the normal temperature, so we’re hoping it will and that we won’t have to lose half a grand to a new refrigerator. You can get one as low as $300, but that doesn’t cover the cost of having it delivered and the old one hauled out.

Anyway, he’s going to be getting progressive and reading glasses. His doctor tried to bullshit him by claiming he had 20/20 vision, but he’s not quite there. Oh, his vision is a million times better than mine, but it’s not perfect. The doctor did admit, though, that as he continues to age, it’s going to worsen. He also may notice cloudy vision in a few years, in which case they’ll have to laser it out, which only takes a minute. I guess that has to do with the buildup of scar tissue or something.

So I got to enjoy another positively shitty night of sleep. I thought CPAPs were supposed to prevent snoring! Then again, with a pressure setting as low as I’ve had, I suppose it’s possible. I woke up a few times because I actually started to snore. Not snort, but snore. So I guess age or weight or both of them have caught up to me for sure. I’ll never lose significant weight or get any younger, though, so I’m pretty screwed either way.

Just like yesterday, I wasn’t able to sleep long enough despite being tired. Then I went and made things worse by taking Benadryl so I could nap. I did nap for a couple of hours, but I awoke groggy as fuck. Since I can’t use the nasal mask anymore, I reset the pressure back to the standard 4 to 20. It usually ramps up to around 10, which is average. The good thing is that I can handle the pressure with the oral mask, even though it sure makes my lips feel a bit stretched and puts a little pressure on my teeth. It’s definitely not the most comfortable mask, and the quick-release magnet is very quite heavy. You don’t notice it with the top hose, but you sure do with this setup.

Sleeping on my stomach is no longer an option for me because the thing sticks out further and the hose is stiffer. I’ve had to coil the hose on the pillow above my head because of the stiffness and weight to keep it from feeling like something's tugging at it, and sometimes this causes the hose to kink. I’m going to miss the nasal mask. Better yet, I miss the days when I could sleep with nothing on my nose or in my mouth!

I still really, truly believe without a doubt that my sleep is cursed, and that something doesn’t want me sleeping and having decent energy most of the time. I don’t know what could possibly hate me so much that it would do this to me. Am I really that bad of a person? Seriously, just what did I ever do to anyone to deserve to suffer so much for so long? First I endure 8 years of kickass anxiety, and now this, which is getting worse by the year.

It may not be quite as shitty a feeling as anxiety, but it’s still shitty enough, and it’s very debilitating. It’s not easy, but you can still function to a degree when you’re anxious. When you’re utterly batshit exhausted from sleep disturbances and not getting enough hours of sleep, it’s incredibly hard to function. I've gone from being woken up a few times a week to a few times a day.

At one point while I was up and down, I noticed a spittle of water hitting my face and realized it was because the little piece of foam in the elbow part of the tube got wet when I was rinsing the mask. So I took it out, but then it hissed pretty badly, so I put it back in. I’m guessing it’s probably a drool catcher. The drool hasn’t been as much of an issue as I thought it would be. It doesn’t leak out the sides of the mask and down my chin and cheeks like I thought it would.

Even though I can handle the normal pressure range with the oral mask, that doesn’t eliminate whatever is cursing my sleep in the first place. There’s no guarantee the increased pressure will stop me from snoring. It’s not a snore like a regular person without a CPAP, but it’s still enough to wake me up, as light a sleeper as I am. This still leaves a whole host of other things that whatever’s cursing my sleep can use against me, from nightmares to tummy issues to simply waking up for no reason. The hose and mask can still hiss at times, too.

I think the reason my sleep has been getting a little fragmented, and I’ve been having a little trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, is the same reason my weight is down a bit, and that’s that my TSH may be dropping. I skipped the gummies today. I swear B12 seems to influence it more than vitamin D and selenium. I’m not going to make any more levo skips, though, with labs being next month.

I’ve also noticed that my hair feels thicker and is growing faster. Plus, I woke up hot even though it’s been cool in here. I don’t know for sure that it’s connected to my TSH, but it seems reasonable enough.

With my allergies getting worse, we decided to do a candle experiment. Personally, I think it’s more on the nasal valves closing than allergies, but since candles do have some allergens, I’m going to use only the lamp warmers for the next week to see if it makes a difference. We both don’t think it will, since I burned incense for so many years and that’s certainly worse than candles, but the only way to know for sure is to experiment. So no flames for a week. Worst-case scenario, I switch to wax cubes. I kind of liked watching the wax in the candle jars go down, and it was certainly easier than dumping old wax, but I’ll do what’s best for me.

I just hope to hell that after 6 hours of sleep yesterday and 5.5 hours today—not counting the nap—I can resume my usual 7 to 8 hours. Nine hours of good, solid sleep would be a blessing tonight, but of course I won’t get that. Even if I don’t snore or anything related to the CPAP wakes me up, there will be something. There always is. Always.