But now? Now I feel nervous if I don’t have my CPAP when falling asleep. This happens when the power is out or if there is a mechanical issue. Those nights are fitful sleeps with lots of tossing and turning.
I’ve started to love the lack of snoring. I really hate spontaneous naps that are stopped by me gagging on my own throat. Scary. Gross. I’m over it.
Nat smiles at the camera with just a normal amount of dark circles under her eyes. It’s a win!
Even better in the past 7 years I find more people are open about using a CPAP and sharing strategies to adapt to using it regularly. I think this is the positive peer support we need to persevere and overcome our individual barriers to donning the mask each night.
Recommended soundtrack: Breathing Underwater by Metric
Folks I recently had the great joy and privilege to come home to New Brunswick after not seeing family & friends for 2 years due to travel restrictions to mitigate COVID 19.
Some Canadians, especially those of us born on the East Coast and who live somewhere else, love a good road trip. I certainly do, having made the trek from Ontario to New Brunswick regularly since 1993. Ya. That’s a lot of kilometers friends, roughly 1,600 km each way!
I was nervous about being on major highways after an 18 month hiatus. I hadn’t left London since Christmas 2019. I was worried about how achy I would be, but especially how tired I would get.
But then something unexpected happened, I didn’t get bone tired. I didn’t reach for coffee the first leg of the drive. It was after 6pm and we drove from London, Ontario to Brockville. It’s roughly 5 hours and a third of the way. It makes the second day much more reasonable.
We arrived later than expected because traffic and life. But. I wasn’t dead tired.
The next morning I got up, packed and was on the road for an hour before we grabbed coffees and breakfast. So. Weird.
The thing is, for almost 30 years, I was the walking dead in the morning. Frighteningly tired. Every. Morning.
So I drank coffee, a lot of it. I blamed a weak will, a hedonistic personality, and a myriad of other character flaws because “everyone knows” caffeine addiction makes for terrible mornings.
But. Uh. Folks. There’s something that changed since my last road trip, regular use of a CPAP machine.
It wasn’t an easy transition. I’m now thinking I’m almost to neutral about wearing it, which is tremendous progress. I definitely don’t love it but now I am appreciative of its slow but steady support of my sleep and rest.
I still love coffee but I can wait a few hours in the morning. I have become a bit of a morning person. No one is more surprised than I!
So when we drove into my parents’ dooryard I arrived tired but not a mess. It was such a huge change. I don’t know I would have noticed if it hadn’t been so long since I had a road trip and enough CPAP time to recover from a lifetime of sleep deficits.
So I am grateful for the insight and the impact of my daily sleep routine.
As you emerged from restrictions this year did you notice something new?
Natalie smiles, slightly surprised or bemused at not being tired all the time. She is in a super cute turquoise paisley dress she got for five dollars at a thrift shop. She is leaning against a pine plank wall and sees that she definitely needs a haircut but that’s ok.
