The Night My Husband Died

My husband has a condition called Sleep Apnea, not to be confused with other sleep disorders like Insomnia, Narcolepsy, and any other sleep disorders I don't know about. I diagnosed him myself. He used to be sleepy all the time, no matter when we went to bed or how late he got up. He was Mr. Crankypants, and never wanted to do anything. He would fall asleep on the couch within a half hour, no matter what was on TV. There could be screaming, explosions, car chases, shot-outs. It didn't matter, he would sleep right through it. Even if there was company over he would sit there and nod off, snoring right through the movie or news or whatever we were watching.

For a while I didn't really mind, except when company was over. That was kind of embarrassing. But once he fell asleep, I could change the channel to whatever I wanted to watch. Sure, let's watch Missing In Action. Then as soon as he nodded off I would change it to something with a little more class. I could just sit and read a book or go get on the computer. That was before I had my laptop, so I had to get up and go in the office. I could do anything I wanted. But after a while it got kind of boring. He would sleep on the couch all evening, and then go to bed, and in the morning he would still be a zombi.

I started watching him while he slept on the couch. If he was sitting one way, he would sleep fine, but if he moved, all of a sudden everything changed. I could see his abdomen moving like he was trying to breathe , but I could tell there wasn't any air getting into his lungs. It was like he was swallowing his tongue or something. Then he would move a little and gasp a few times and fall back asleep, only to start the whole cycle over again.

I told him I thought he had Sleep Apnea, and needed to go see the doctor, but like the man that he is he denied everything. He didn't have a problem, I had a problem. He was just sleepy, that's all. Finally, he realized he really did have a problem. It took about a half hour to drive home from work, and he said it was getting harder and harder to drive home without falling asleep behind the wheel. He said a couple of times he thinks he did nod off right before he got to the house. He's lucky he didn't run off the road, or into oncoming traffic.

We called our health insurance provider and they said he needed to go to a sleep clinic. He didn't want to go. The closest clinic was in St. Louis, about an hour from our house, and that was way too far to go, even though his mom lived in St. Louis less than 10 minutes from the clinic and he never felt like her house was too far away. Eventually, he agreed to go spend the night like a lab rat. I went down and dropped him off, and this is what he said happened after I left.

First, they hooked him up with so many wires and electrodes he said he looked like Data from Star Trek had turned inside out. He told them they didn't need to bother with all that because he knew he had Sleep Apnea, all they had to do was give him the machine he needed to use when he slept and he could go home right then, but they wouldn't listen. They said they had to observe him for at least 4 hours before they could make an official diagnosis.

So he went into what looked sort of like a crappy little motel room with one of those infrared video cameras pointed right at the bed. Sort of like a weird porn set. He said he was minding his own business, choking his way through the night, when they came in and woke him up. Apparently I was right, he had Sleep Apnea. One of the worse cases they had seen. Usually they just observe all night long, but his blood oxygen level had gone down to like 6 or something. Well, not 6. I think even dead bodies have a higher blood oxygen level than that, but his was way down. They were freaking out about how low his level was. Our neighbor the nurse said in the hospital they start freaking when a patient's blood oxygen level gets to about 80-90, and his was 60, and his blood pressure was 160 over 120 or so, about head exploding level.

They let him get up and walk around while they started setting up the machine he was going to have to start using. He decided, like the rocket scientist he is, that it was a good time to go outside and have a cigarette. He didn't want to waste any time breathing oxygen when he could be sucking in tar, nicotine, and carbon dioxide. For some reason that made him start feeling lightheaded. Of course, the door to the sleep clinic locked after he closed it, so he had to push the intercom button and ask to be let back in. They freaked out some more about him smoking and brought him back inside, hooked him up to the machine and told him to go back to sleep.

The machine he has to use is called a CPAP machine. It's about the size of a shoebox, with a long flexible hose leading to a contraption of straps and velcro that holds it onto your head. On the end is a little piece that fits around your nose. They started it on the lowest setting, 1, and ended up with it set for 14, enough air pressure to knock over a small child, or a really drunk adult. They hooked him up and he went back to sleep for the rest of the night. The first real sleep he had enjoyed in months, maybe years.

He was a changed man. Just those few hours of sleep perked him up like he was on speed. Even our nurse neighbor noticed the change in him. She actually called her husband at work and told him they had new neighbors. They started calling my husband the New Dude. My husband wasn't too thrilled that he was going to have to wear that contraption on his head every night, but it would be worth it to feel awake and alive again.

That night he put the CPAP on and went to sleep. It was nice not having to listen to him snoring, gasping, and choking all night. Later that night I woke up, and wasn't even sure if he was in bed with me or not because it was so quiet. My husband likes to have a fan going while he sleeps, and that was all I could hear. I rolled over and saw that he really was laying there next to me. But he was laying on his stomach, with his face mashed into the pillow. Laying really still. Not moving a muscle. He was sleeping like a dead man. I reached over and touched his back. My husband doesn't wear a shirt when he sleeps, and he not only likes a fan on, it has to be actually blowing on him.

So I touched his back and it was cold. I mean room temperature cold. Dead body cold. I started freaking. I didn't know what to do. I really thought he was dead. Two thoughts went through my mind. First, at least he was actually awake for his last day on earth. And I was going to sue everybody who had anything to do with that CPAP machine. That was obviously what killed him. All that oxygen must have overwhelmed his poor mind. I was going to sue the sleep clinic, the employees at the sleep clinic, the doctor that sent him to the sleep clinic, the company that made the CPAP machine, the employees who put it together, the company that shipped it to the sleep clinic, the guy driving the van who delivered it to the sleep clinic, and maybe some other random people who might have at one time seen a CPAP machine. They were all going down. I was going to be rich.

Then I reached up and felt his neck. Damn, he had a pulse.