Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Obstructive Sleep Apnea

For those that know me this probably isn't much of a surprise, but I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Details about it is found at the link to the top of this post.

Essentially, being a big bloke, very big in weight its no surprise I snore. I have done this acutely for all my life, weight plays a large part. This snoring is mostly down to the obstructive sleep apnea. To summarise in layman terms, obstructive sleep apnea is when my airway becomes blocked during sleep because of "over relaxment". With it being blocked it has two main outward appearances. First is I can snore very loud, the second is that I stop breathing.

In terms of snoring - its so loud my next door neighbour can hear me. In terms of breathing it means I wake up regularly during the night gasping for breathe (My wife notices this, but I don't have any recollection). There are some serious none visible signs which I will come to.

About 4 weeks ago I undertook a sleep study. This basically involved sleeping with some monitoring equipment that, in fact, made sleep difficult. I had a monitor across my chest, a monitor up my nose and a finger monitor for oxygen levels. I did sleep eventually. Today I received the results which confirmed my condition, one that my wife knew about.

The results were "interesting". During my sleep study, on average, I woke up to restart breathing 20 times per hour, however on one occasion I woke up 70 times (70) in one hour. I have no recollection of this at all. In terms of obstruction and not sleeping, my average was in the region of 20 seconds each time it occurred, but there was one monitor that observed me not breathing for nearly 83 seconds - 1 minute 23. I have tried to hold my breathe for that long tonight and its frightening because I can't. To me these are scary results.

We asked what could happen if not treated. This response was as shocking as the values monitored above. Being overweight I have always suffered from high blood pressure as we as a high craving for the nice food of life. However it looks as though the high blood pressure has been caused by the sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea causes your blood pressure to go off the scale, apparently as I understand it because your body is not exhaling the carbon dioxide from your lungs, and hence your oxygen levels in the blood are dropping. This can then cause blood clots and consequently strokes, heart disease and death. Frightening.

Cutting this short, the upshot is I now have to wear a CPAP mask (Continuos Positive Airway Pressure), which prevents the blockage to my airways occurring and prevents the snoring. It is a mask and a half and is not pretty in bed, but the consultant at the N&N has said it was radically change my life in terms of energy.

The mask arrives on Saturday and I will at some point post a picture of what I look like to give you an idea.

Birthdays

The past couple of weeks have seen us have two birthday parties, one for Amber and one for Max. The one for Amber, was just the four of us and was really nice and relaxed.

The one for Max was a different affair. To be honest it was more than a birthday party as we invited all his class / nursery mates and their parents around on the 19th. Max leaves nursery after being there for 3 full days since he was 8 month year old so the party was also a kinda leaving party for everyone as well - a graduation party you could say.

We live in a terraced house which when you have 14 children and nearly 19 adults became quickly crowded and absolutley packed. We had also spent ours making two cakes and cooking food and we were exhausted. Nonetheless Max loved it and it was great fun, the parents enjoyed wine and beer in the garden while the kids were entertained by Emma.

Anyway, Max has his last day on Wednesday, and will be starting at a new school (literally new too) in Dussindale. I know its going to be a big change for all of us but we are looking forward to it.

Here are some photos from Max's party on Sunday......

Washing Machines "possibly could" live longer with Calgon

I was sitting here and the advert "Washing machines live longer with calgon" came on - being slightly bored, slightly tired and really in a need to go to bed, I did what most people do - went to see if the statement "Washing machines live longer with Calgon" is true.

And the answer - well - it would appear that they do but you don't need to use it.

Reading the article below it would appear that limescale gathering on the heating element is the worst cause. By adding more detergent you therefore effectively are making the water softer and consequently reducing limescale. SO - if your in a hard water area then likelyhood is you suffer from this nuisance (and don't really worry too much about the environment) you can either buy calgon and reduce the amount of detergent used OR use more detergent.

Simple really

http://www.washerhelp.co.uk/limescale_2.html#cl_q1

Milky Way and ET

I am fairly sure that I have blogged on this before - and I cannot be bothered to look for it - but its two things really.

I am watching the BBC 2's programme Beginners Guide to the Cosmos and a guy is stating on here that in our galaxy alone there is possibly 10,000 other educated, communicable life planets out there. Multiplying that up to other galaxies the figure becomes unreal.
I've always found it hard to reconcile why there would be this intelligent life on other planets as a Christian.

Why - I just don't get why God would create intelligent life on other planets. If he has, is he hiding it from us? Did Jesus die for other people on other planets? Are they just as sinful as us? Maybe this is part of simply concentrating on your own walk and not even worrying about others (whether this planet or somewhere else).

The other thing is something I have never understood. The typical image of a galaxy is spidery arms with a fat glowing centre. Well - I know we can see the Milky Way (the spidery leg we are in our galaxy) - but where is our glowing centre - why cannot we see it when we can clearly see others in other galaxy's - therefore it its that bright, sure we should be able to see it?

Is that me being silly or just wierd?