Before I Self Destruct...

I've recently discovered that my body is literally trying to implode; and while some of you might think that this is an exaggeration, I can truly assure you that it's not. Within a two week span of me staying at friend's and family's houses, it was confirmed twice that I periodically try to suffocate myself in my sleep. The suspect: possible sleep apnea, which is causing me to choke and not breathe during my slumber. So, in essence my body keeps trying to kill itself.

In an effort to stay alive, I reached out to the doctor to make an appointment. Unfortunately, it would be a good three weeks before I was able to be seen. To mind my time until the doctor was able to save my life, I headed to the wonderful world of Wikipedia - land of all useful knowledge. Of course the one and only fact I was able to focus on was that sleep apnea will inevitably cause my untimely death, but I did learn a good amount of information (whether that information was actually factual doesn't really matter). Apparently, the longer I suffer from sleep apnea without treatment, the less oxygen reaches my brain and that lack of brain oxygen will cause an array of fun health issues, including (but not limited to!) heart disease, stroke, clinical depression and obesity.

Not only was it bad enough that I could wake the dead from my obnoxious snoring, I was now suffocating myself in my sleep, preventing oxygen from reaching my brain, making myself fatter, and counting down the days to my first stroke. With my excitement in tow, I finally headed to the doctor to see what could possibly be done. She took a look down my throat and said "Wow, it's crowded back there." Crowded? With what? Subway cars are crowded; my house of too many roommates is crowded; I'm pretty confident my throat shouldn't be crowded. She wrote me a referral to the sleep medicine guru and sent me on my merry way to sleep another night closer to a heart attack.


Luckily, the sleep medicine facility was able to get me in two days later. She started asking me question after question to gauge how likely it was that I had sleep apnea.

• Do you snore? Yes!
• Do you have headaches? Yes!
• Do you have heart burn? Yes!
• Do you have night sweats? Yes! They don't call me Sweatz^TM for nothin'.

I then had to rate my level of sleepiness in different situations on a scale from 0 to 3 - 3 being the most likely I'd fall asleep.

• Sitting and Reading? 3
• Watching TV? 3
• Sitting inactive in a public place (like a meeting at work)? Definitely 3
• Passenger in a car for an hour without a break? 3
• In a car, while stopped in traffic? 3

She told me that I had a very high level of sleepiness, that I am an accident waiting to happen, and that I shouldn't drive until this is under control. Sure - that's a feasible option. Luckily I live and work within a 5 mile radius, so the chance of my flying off the road and killing pedestrians isn't as high anymore. I should probably start driving with a helmet on though, just in case. She scheduled a sleep study for me, so we can figure out just how severe my sleep apnea is. She then went on to tell me that while sleep apnea does clearly suck it is very treatable with a CPAP machine aka The Oxygen Mask of No Sex.


I'm pretty confident that I can just give up the hope of ever having sex again, let alone a boyfriend or future husband. Do they have vaginal amputation surgery? Can I donate it to someone who can have sex? I clearly won't need her anymore. Would that donation be a tax write off? That'd be helpful. Perhaps with all the restful, brain oxygenating sleep and lack of sex, I will become incredibly focused on going back to school, getting a fourth job, or trying to ward off the impending major obesity that the sleep apnea was trying to bring upon me. So I may be vaginally useless, but I'll be smarter, hotter and my brain will once again be filled with sweet, sweet oxygen.