Category: Slice ‘o Life

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New Mattress, New Sheets, New Life!

My husband and I have been sharing a bed for twenty years, give or take a month or two.  TWENTY YEARS, PEOPLE.  That’s a long time to do anything.  For all of those twenty years we have been sleeping on a futon pad on the futon platform left over from my husband’s freewheeling bachelor days.  And, yes, that makes me a 47 year old grown a$$ woman who still sleeps on her husband’s bachelor bed. Sigh.

But middle age is catching up with the both of us.  That futon platform lies low to the floor, my friends, and that futon pad is getting thinner by the day.  Add my bum knee, and that’s a long way up from a sleeping position.  I have heard about the concept of “under the bed,” but that is not something I have experienced as an adult.  Our under the bed is approximately three inches of space — just enough for the dust bunnies, but only if they’re thin.

You'd never know that was a futon under all that would you? This photo was taken before our bed developed those visible peaks and valleys.
You’d never know that was a futon under all that would you? This photo was taken before our bed developed those visible peaks and valleys.

But there comes a time to grow the hell up, at least while sleeping, so we recently decided to invest in a new mattress.  A real mattress. One that doesn’t cause pain to our lower backs.  One that doesn’t have peaks and valleys visible even when the bed is made.  One that will double the width of our current twelve year old futon pad.  One that doesn’t result in me wincing every time I roll over.  Yes, it is time.

I am thrilled.  It was supposed to be delivered last Friday.  We went 21st century and ordered one of those mattresses that comes vacuum packed in a box.  Alas, for unknown reasons, it never arrived and that little tracker thingy tells us today is the day.

TODAY IS THE DAY!

I celebrated this momentous occasion by going out yesterday to buy new sheets.  I realized that a brand new mattress that magically pops up out of a box is deserving of some new sheets.  I also realized that true grown ups probably have more than two sets of sheets.

Sheet shopping was its own kind of ordeal.  I know that some super cool person who sits in some super fancy office building is who decides on the color palettes that Americans can choose from (yep, I watched The Devil Wears Prada), but damn, I think that super cool person in their super fancy office is clinically depressed this season.

Mustard Malaise and Gloomy Grey. Who wants to go to sleep on these?
Mustard Malaise and Gloomy Grey. Who wants to go to sleep on these?

The current  sheet options range from Mustard Malaise to Seafoam Suicidal Ideation to Gloomy Grey.  Dreary and glum, all of them.  I finally found some kind of vintage-y, sort of cheerful prints at the fourth store I went to.  The fourth store.  Damn, you know you’re middle aged when a big day out is sheet shopping and you have the mental fortitude to go to four stores until you find a mostly suitable option that doesn’t cost more than the LuLaRoe outfit you’ve been eyeing for the past three months.

I am fairly convinced that the first morning I wake up on those new sheets on my new mattress my life will be transformed.  Transformed.  It is going to be the very first day of the rest of my life, folks!  There is only room for amazing here. The birds will be singing, the sun will be shining, my little ones will have made their own breakfast.  I can see it now . . .

That fact that all this full on restful joy will be happening on that same old futon platform from 1994 is a detail for another day.

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If you want to read about another grown a$$ woman with a futon, click HERE!

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Have You Ever Met a Refugee?

This morning I had the opportunity to drive three little girls to their dance lessons.  They happened to be Syrian refugees who live in my neighborhood. Two of the girls are sisters and while we waited for the third girl to get to the car, they told me their stories, totally unsolicited, and with joy and laughter.

The sisters are in Kindergarten and 4th grade. We giggled that all of our names start with the letters “Sh.”  The 4th grader loves school, but her sister finds it boring and wants to switch to the school her friends go to because it is more fun.  They looked a lot like twins, despite having a few years between them.

The younger sister told me they have lived in Chicago for two years and before that, they lived in five other countries after leaving Syria. Their father died when the girls were one and five. They miss him. The older girl, who was four when her dad died does “not really remember him.” They knew that he had eyes that turned green in the sun. They wished their brown eyes did the same.

A few minutes later, the other girl came down with her mom who didn’t speak a lot of English, but gave Chicago a thumbs up. This little girl recently relapsed with cancer.  I wanted to explain to her mother, the woman sitting next to me with the kind face and gentle eyes wearing the hijab, that I understood, that I, too, once mothered a daughter with cancer, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.  Her English was much better than my Arabic, but it still wasn’t enough for us to share such specific intimacies.

I dropped them off at the dance studio where my own daughter danced so many years ago.  Officially, the main studio has been named after our girl, and there is a plaque and photo of Donna above the door as you walk through.  After the girls went in, I pointed to the photo and said, “My daughter,” to the mom I had just met.  She smiled and said, “Oh.”

I left and returned as the class was ending.  The teacher invited me in saying the dancers needed to get used to having an audience. Would I mind watching?  I was honored.

The music started and within moments I felt tears welling up.  There were a dozen dancers, probably eight to ten years old.  Some had blond hair, some had black hair, all were beautiful.  The choreography was gorgeous and involved the dancers huddled together at times, protective and nurturing.  Other times they danced in formation, powerful and graceful.

dancers

These girls, in their pink and purple lycra, were bonded.  It didn’t matter that some have fled war across oceans, or others were born not three miles from where they still lived.  It didn’t matter that some worship in a church and others in a mosque.  None of that mattered to any of them.

As we were leaving, the girls laughing again and holding hands, happy to get outside where they could run along the sidewalk, I noticed another photo of my daughter in the lobby of the studio.  In this one, Donna is bald and concentrating on her dancing, focused.  I pointed again, to my fellow mother and said, “My daughter.”  Again, she smiled.  Did she make the connection?

In the car riding home, the three girls laughing and going in and out of English and Arabic, I asked the mom if she had other children. Two other daughters, she said, one ten and one nine months.  It struck me in that moment that she was the mother of an American citizen. She asked me the same, “You?  How many children?”

Answering this question is complicated on the best of days, but today, with the language barrier and the bond of cancer between us, it was especially hard.  “I have two boys,” I said, “Eight and three years old.”  “And your daughter?,” she asked.  “She died,” I offered, “She is gone.”  I think she got it.  I don’t know.  Does it even matter?

A lot of people want you to believe that we should fear Syrian refugees, that they are somehow a danger to our way of life here in America.  I am not afraid.  I refuse to fear three little girls giggling in my back seat.  I refuse to fear a child that carries a purple backpack with colorful cats on it.  I refuse to fear a nine year old in the midst of a cancer relapse.  I refuse to fear a mother who left her home in search of something better for her children, one of whom is an American citizen.  I refuse to fear another mother who lost her husband in civil war and fled with a young child and infant, hoping for safety and peace.

Fear is a powerful tool.  It can easily be leveraged and manipulated, exploited for political gain.  It is easy to fear that which you don’t know or understand. Today I met four Syrian refugees.  There was nothing fearful about them.  They were lovely and sweet and very much like our own daughters.

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Sleep Apnea, a Bedtime Story

It’s after 9PM and I am awake.  A few months ago, this would have been highly unlikely.  A few months ago, I was living with untreated sleep apnea and, for lack of a better term, was not unlike a zombie.  Settle in for a sleepy bedtime story, my friends.

Once upon a time, my husband politely pointed out that I was snoring.  Loudly.  We laughed about it, mostly.  I shrugged it off, always. After a while, those polite mentions of my snoring turned into more concerned expressions of worry.  “Sweetie, I think you might have sleep apnea.  There are times in the night when you are gasping for air and you stop breathing.  It’s scary.  You should go see a doctor.” I always shrugged it off.  Nevertheless, he persisted.  “Sweetie, it was really bad last night.  I think you need to call a doctor.”

Lather, rinse, repeat.

After almost two years of this scenario, and me having a harder time justifying the giggle and distract response I preferred, I reluctantly made an appointment with a neurologist/sleep specialist to surprise my husband on our 15th anniversary.  Aaahhhh, marriage!  Apparently, 15 years marks the CPAP anniversary.

A friend had recently posted about his own experience in a sleep study and his hopes for a more rested future.  I summoned up all the courage I could muster and reached out to him.  Tell me your secrets, oh wise and sleepy one.  Gratefully, he did.

The truth is that life had become fairly intolerable.  I had trouble waking in the morning, as restful sleep was a thing of the past.  I trudged through my days, napping whenever I could.  My husband would often take care of the kids before he left for work, waking me when he and my older son left for work and school.  In the evening, after dinner, I would say goodnight, then retreat to bed, often by 7 or 7:30.  Within minutes I would collapse and fall asleep, often waking at midnight or soon after, ready to disco.

These were the quiet hours of my day, my middle of the night party for one.  I would often stream TV shows on my iPad, sometimes get a snack.  I convinced myself that those hours were “me time” and, while I wasn’t sleeping, I was still resting, technically, reclining in bed, ear buds on, catching up on the best Netflix had to offer.

My quality of life had gone to hell.  The fatigue was oppressive.  I was sharp and cranky with my kids.  I dreaded any event that kept me out of the house at night. Basic tasks like dinner and laundry were overwhelming.  I honestly don’t know how my husband or sons put up with me.

It turns out I didn’t just have sleep apnea, but a severe case of sleep apnea.  The two sleep studies I had showed that I was experiencing 70-80 “events” an hour — basically, I was waking up 70-80 times an hour, all night, every night.  This was hard core sleep disturbance that involved both my brain and my lungs not functioning properly and not cooperating with one another.  People die from this.

It was clear from the get go that a CPAP machine (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, yo) would be necessary.  Dammit.  CPAP machines were for old men, not me.  The idea of needing to rely on air being forced into my nose via a machine because of lazy throat muscles freaked me the freak out.

My Dad relied on a CPAP machine the last twenty years of his life.  It was big and loud and made him look like an elephant at night. Was this my fate?  Yep, turns out, it was.

cpap

Five months into sleeping with the aid of a CPAP machine, I’m over my bad self, for the most part.  Full disclosure, I had an extremely easy transition to wearing the mask and being connected to a machine to enable sleep.  Gratefully, while I have severe apnea, I am treated effectively with a minimal amount of air flow.  The machine, while annoying, is quiet and tolerable.

The truth is that my vanity is what prevented me from seeking treatment sooner.  That vanity contributed to me and my husband and my children suffering from the effects of my sleep apnea for so much longer than was necessary.  My health suffered, too.  Sleep apnea contributes to high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes, depression, irritability, insomnia, and a host of other unpleasant possibilities.  It is nothing to joke about, or ignore.

While I hoped for a complete turnaround, an Oprah style transformation, I can’t claim that, but I do note significant improvements, as do the three humans who live with me.  I have more energy these days.  I no longer dread leaving the house.  I am once again able to exercise.  My irritability has diminished and my concentration improved.  Dinners and laundry have resumed being a tolerable level of drudgery.  Naps are a luxury again, instead of a necessity.

If you think you or someone you love might have sleep apnea, I highly recommend attending to that ish.  Today.  Well, maybe not today, as it’s 10PM now.  That right there is a miracle to me — writing and typing and thinking and producing at 10 o’clock in the damn night is not something I would have been able to do pre-diagnosis.  CPAP FTW.

Nighty night, y’all.  Lights out, mask on.

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If you want more information about sleep apnea, read HERE or HERE or listen HERE.