The last two springs, I have had some odd irritation in my nostrils and have also developed respiratory issues over the last five years, so I hit the ENT. The first one I went to said to not worry about the nose thing because, as Murphy’s Law would have it, my nose was not irritated THAT DAY. Ugh.

When I began having issues again two months later, I went searching for a different ENT. Several friends had used Dr. Charles Orozco downtown Phoenix, so I figured that even thought it was a hike from South Chandler I would try him. He ran several tests, explained I more than likely had an ongoing Staph infection in my nose that an antibiotic ointment would hand, and asked if I had any more issues.

I explained that I had excessive snoring (to the point that my wife would sometimes sleep in the guest room) and I was always tired. He said to err on the side of caution that I should do a sleep test. I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea since any test I could do where I get to sleep more would be awesome.

Within a week I was at East Valley Oximetry hooked up to all sorts of electrodes, and preparing to go to sleep. The woman told me she’d come in to put a CPAP on me if I had “episodes”. I wasn’t sure what any of that meant but I was tired and went to sleep. Over night she instructed me to do several things like roll over and lie on my back, and I woke with this weird mask over my face. The CPAP is a mask that goes over your nose and blows humid air down your throat continually. As she unhooked everything in the morning, she said I had episodes so I asked for clarification. Her response: “You stop breathing when you sleep.” Beyond that she was vague since she wasn’t the ENT. He’d have to read my results. I was pretty sure he’d want my tonsils out, which I was ok with since so many people had them out anyway.

A few days later I was back in his office and he explained that true, good, restful sleep was REM sleep, and that I on slipped into REM sleep about 1/2% of the time. Yes, you read that right. Half of 1% of my sleeping is restful. He also said I stop breathing on average 60 times an hour at night. So, yes, every minute.

I asked him what we do now, and he said we had two options. 1) wear a breathing mask like the one during the sleep study every time I sleep forever, or 2) surgery. At first he was relatively vague with the surgery, but I cam to discover he recommended removing my tonsils (no problem), shrinking the back of my tongue (kinda odd but less evasive than it sounds), and cutting out m uvula and part of my soft palate in the back of my mouth (OMG, ewww ouch!). After we discussed each of these procedures for awhile I asked if perhaps we could try the CPAP to see if it helps, and if not, then I could move on to a discussion of surgery. This was in mid-July, I was returning to work right away, and I figured I could do surgery over October break if it came to that. He agreed wholeheartedly, and I asked what would happen if I just did nothing. His response: “You could die”.

See the dangly uvula back there hanging down? It’s gonna be in a glass jar soon enough.

I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea that could lead to strokes (I am 34 for God’s sake!), heart attack (runs in my family!), or arrhythmia (yuck!). I made an appointment with East Valley Respiratory to be fitted for a mask and to pick up my CPAP machine. The day I went the woman had several different styles of mask and I picked the one I thought would work the best. A couple people I’d talked to said that they can’t sleep with them, but I can sleep pretty much however/whenever so I wasn’t worried. The lady said it would be $400 for the machine, which was my part after insurance; I forked over the money and took it home.

Immediately I realized there was literally no way to snore on a CPAP at all since you have to sleep with your mouth closed. It is physically impossible not to. I got use to the mask very quickly and have slept with it almost every night since late July. Of course, I expected to be wider awake, have more energy and not be tired during the day. This didn’t happen. I also didn’t like the whole “you need to wear that mask for the rest of your life” attitude, especially since I travel all of the time. I began to research surgery.

Doc tried to give me the layman’s terms of what he wanted to due, but I would’ve preferred the medical terms because, as we all know, I am not a dummy. Eventually I discovered he wanted to perform a uvulopalatoplasty, tonsillectomy, and a somnoplasty. As I research, more and more I couldn’t find anecdotal materials, and I sort of put it off because I knew I couldn’t even bother go under the knife err…. laser until October when my fall break began.

These last two weeks I’ve been in a funk. Not really sure why, but mostly I sleep. Now since taking my current full time job about 5 years ago, I’ve been getting up before 5AM and most nights I am in bed before 10PM. That’s 7 hours of sleep, and that should be enough. But recently I’ve been tired all of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t tell you many times in my adult life where I am not tired, and I bet you I could go to sleep anywhere at anytime, but recently my tiredness has gone to a new level. Everyday this week I’ve come home from work and fallen asleep. Just like that. I pick Claire up from school, bring her home, get her situated with whatever she wants/likes, and I go to sleep. Mostly I try to sleep on the couch, so I am near her. Two nights ago she wanted to play her Vtech Dora educational video game, so I sat down on the edge of my expansive coffee table and clicked over to the AV source on the TV remote; next thing I knew, it was 45 minutes later, she was playing the game, and I was in the fetal position across the coffee table sleeping. Donna told me I just need more sleep, so last night I went to bed at at 9:30-ish. I woke at 12:30AM, 1:17AM, 2:30AM, 3:16AM, and rolled out of bed at 4:33AM. I just can’t win this game.

It seems that every Christmas someone ends up at Urgent Care. Claire went last year and again this year for coughing, but this year they thought she developed a cough because it was cold and snowy and then got really warm really quickly. They said she wasn’t contagious and to have a nice day.

The next morning I woke up congested. That was 3 1/2 days ago. By this morning I thought I was going to die. I was completely congested, my head throbbed, and my nose wouldn’t stop running. I grabbed my clothes and headed straight to urgent care. The doctor took one look at me and told me she hoped I had no where to be. My temperature was 103.6 and my blood pressure was 140/90. She did a strep throat culture and x-rayed my chest, before she had the nurse come in and put an IV in. She said she’d prefer me to go nowhere until they brought down both my fever and my blood pressure. They ran an IV of Toridol and I laid there and slept for an hour.

Later she came back in and told me I had pneumonia and a sinus infection. Well, no crap. Anyone could tell me that I had a sinus infection. But the pneumonia was news to me. Damnit. I feel terrible, but Toridol sure helped. I headed to Walgreen’s to buy like 20 different drugs before driving to my parent’s house. Now I sit here on their couch waiting for Penn State to kill USC in the Rose Bowl.

Jogging the Canal, originally uploaded by nooccar.

Every so often I think (read: I know) I need to exercise, and recently I became friends with an exercise freak. She bugged me (read: ecouraged me) all of the time to get out there, but part of my problem (read: excuse) is that it’s damn hot in the summer. Well, two things happened recently. 1) It’s cooler in the fall/winter. 2) She began teaching an online jogging class.

I know how funny that sounds, and I’ve gotten some odd looks. Well tonight I began my class officially. I did a run through last week with the dog, which I loved. All weekend I promised my daughter, Claire, that I would take her on a long walk up to the park where there’s a pond. I figured we could walk the canal after that and then come home the same way the dog and I walk.

Claire wanted to bring her wagon to carry her water and doll. Dante hates the wagon and won’t ride it it. Claire won’t really ride in it either since she’s pretty active. She runs a lot and never gets winded too. I ended pulling that damn thing 2.5 miles while she walked the dog, ran around, and had a good time at the park. I finally convinced her to let me pull her when we hit the highway on the other side of the canal, but as soon as we were off the frontage road, she was out of the wagon and running down the sidewalk with the dog. Even thought it was kinda fun, I think next time the daughter and wagon get to stay home.

I don’t know what’s with me lately, but I cannot sleep. I am use to going to bed around 9-10 and waking at 5. This is pretty much how it goes, and we’re happy when we can sleep until 6am on the weekends. Now recently something shifted. I’m not sure what it is, but now I can’t sleep. I still go to bed around the same time (but now on break it’s more like 11pm), but now I can’t sleep much after 3:30AM. I’ve taken to rolling around in bed for awhile and then getting up; I’ll go into the living room and stretch out on one of our couches. Sometimes I can fall back asleep, but I still roll. My body’s been agitated. I can’t stop moving around. Why? I’ve tried Melatonin, and I’ve even doubled to dose. I bet Tylenol PM would put me to sleep (since Benadryl puts me down like a dead horse), but then I can’t get up in the morning. I’ve tried Hydrocodone, but this isn’t a great way to sleep. I have Mecalizine, which nails me harder than Benadryl. I just don’t know. Any ideas?

Ok world here’s a post. A doozy it’ll be. Wow. Today was bad. I was reading Claire a book in the doctor’s office about some little boy who had a terrible, horrible, really bad day, and compared to mine, his was a skip in the sun. Now I know people have worse days in their lives than today. No one died. No one got ran over. No car wrecks. But still pretty bad.

I’ll break the first rule of what a day is now by saying this, in part, began days ago or weeks ago, but I am getting ahead of myself here (or is it, behind myself?)… anyway, Donna’s had a cold-ear infection-sinus-thingy going on, and she got me sick. Yesterday I was terrible, and Claire and I took off from work early to go to the doctor’s. He said my sinus infection was still there and gave me Augmentin. Needless to say I was just on Cipro for a week, which did nothing for me. Nada. No deal. I thanked him, picked up my pills, popped one and went to bed.

By that evening Claire was hacking up a lung. Even few minutes she’d run into her bathroom to spit up in the toilet. I gave her her treatment before bed and her temp was 100. She’s been doing treatments since early June, and we’re all getting a little sick of it! I am going to buy stock in the doctor’s office!

I’d been to the doctor’s with her on and off since June, and the last time Nikki told us she’d have the girls call the allergist. After a week of not hearing back from the referral department, I began calling them. A week later someone from the office called me! Craaaazy. Yes, I was frustrated. Now it’s two weeks out and finally they got her an appointment for later this week.

So now come 745AM I want to call the pediatrician to get her in, but I know they’re not open that early. I figured I’d wait until 8AM. After 8AM I called and the message said they’d open at 9AM. I was like "who opens their offices at 9?!". I knew it was a mistake and remembering Nikki saying something about their VM message being wrong months ago. I kept calling and finally at 9:02AM it went through! They said that Nikki could see her at 9:40AM, so we rushed over there. Donna met us there because she feels like the kid’s been popping antibiotics like candy for 2 years. We were looking for something different. A diagnosis, rather than a treatment.

We got there and the doc came into the room. I figured since it’s been ongoing for so long, that they’d have her look at Claire. She told us some different info, but also a lot of the same.  They had her do a treatment to open her up, which I knew would work, but does the kid gotta take treatments everyday forever? Then they sent us off to the ENT. They called over there immediately and got us in!!!

We hit lunch and then the ENT who told us Claire needed her tubes put back in. See Claire had tubes when she was 1, and now they wanted to redo them. There’s so many different schools of thoughts on tubes, that you never know for sure and now he wants them back in. We have a concern about hearing loss since she’s had ear infections for more than half of her life, now! He wants us to do an ABR test which will conclusively tell if her hearing is ok, and if not, how bad is it?  We acquiesced to the test and left with an antibiotic (ask me anything! I am an antibiotic expert!).

On our way out, I snapped at my wife. So that left a bad taste in both of our mouths. I popped in a DVD (since Claire fell asleep in the car), and the damn speaker was making horrid noises. One speaker’s been messed up in the last few days, so I was just annoyed it was still doing it. I checked all the connections and even slipped the unit out of the tv cabinet to check the wires. Nothing. Nada. Still bad.

Began to consider dinner, but then remembered one of our stove burners doesn’t heat up anymore. We’re down to 2 1/2. Was thinking of doing laundry, but then I remembered our washing machine screams louder than a fire alarm when I try to put on the rinse cycle. Sounds like a ringtail cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and the thing won’t turn. Damn.

Finally gave up, plopped my butt down and did very little. Donna called later and wanted a second opinion. I figured she wasn’t talking about the washer, the tv, or the stove. Maybe it was on marrying me in the first place, but then I decided it was about Claire’s tubes.

My first inclination was NO WAY. NO HOW. Nikki rocks. We love her. The doc is great, too. The ENT is their friend. Nice guy! I wouldn’t want any of them to think we don’t value them. And if we wanted a second opinion, then we’d need to gather records. Damn.

Then I wondered. Worse case scenario, is whatever we (Donna and I) decide affects Claire FOREVER, and somewhere down the line our daughter (who worse case scenario wears hearing aids all her life) asks us why we didn’t get a second opinion on redoing tubes, and we gotta tell her, cause we liked the doc a lot? Well, that sure don’t fly with me.

So now I need another ENT appointment, I gotta take her to the allergist appt (which I was finally able to get), buy a new washer, figure out how to use my stove, and beat my head against my stereo.

In the mean time, I also gotta figure out who dropped the ball at MCC and didn’t order my books for my course, and finish building my courses that Shelley is also teaching, go to two meetings this week about my extra duties at work, and I need to figure out how to drop a duty, but don’t know which one, and lastly I need to learn to not write run-ons because I yell at my kids when they do.

Yesterday, Labor Day, Claire and I needed to get out of the house to give Mama some time to work. Typically, I can take her to the pool and sit there reading or grading or enjoying her splashing in the water. She is soooooo GOOD by herself in the pool. but today I decided I was going in. I am not a big go inner so it was something new for me.

Our problem is that when Claire swims with her family, she messes around. So as soon as we hit the water, she didn’t want anything to do with working on her lessons. A few times I was able to steal her noodle and force her to do some work. A few times she was kicking and flipped into an airplane. She did well when I forced her, but mostly she wanted to mess around. We did have a nice time though.

Today was her weekly lesson. I shot some good video of her doing airplanes and supergirls (with NO help!). Somewhere along the line her teacher, Miss Maribel, mentioned something about her red eyes and something about milk. I had no idea what she was saying, and sometimes she’s a but goofy (but lovable!). I quickly forgot about it, and after getting home, getting dinner, and popping in a DVD, I noticed Claire was cranky. She kept rubbing her eyes, and we were worried. She was very upset and they looked like they hurt.

Finally I decided I was calling SwimKids. Zoe put Chris on the phone, I explained who I was and what my concern was. He immediately told me to lay her down, pour drops of milk on her eyes, and make her open them. He said the PH levels were higher than usual today and Milk neutralizes the acids. I thought he was off his rocker. Milk in her eyes! Mooo. Cow’s milk? So I dragged her into the room, held her down, dropped milk into her eyes, comforted her while she cried, and then nothing. No rubbing. No real pain. Some whimpers from being held down and milk poured into her eyes, but she was fine! Really odd, but a helluva thing.

Friday morning I took my meds. Cipro for my sinus infection and something called Meclizine for vertigo. It’s suppose to help me not feel dizzy until my "ear rocks" dissolve or whatever they’re gonna do (fall out my years?). I had a conference Friday all day where I was presenting with a good friend of mine in a relatively informal setting. A couple of hours in, I wasn’t feeling too hot. I felt really groggy and tired. I just thought it had to do with being sick and always tired. I drank more and more coffee, but nothing worked. By lunch I would barely stay awake. I suggested we cut out early, but the afternoon key note workshop was coming up soon. I stuck it out, and when they put us in groups and it was my turn to share, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t open my mouth and talk. I just sat there like some idiot who had nothing to say. But inside I felt more like I was trapped and couldn’t talk.

As soon as he was done with the workshop, I grabbed my stuff and ran. All I could think about was my bed, but I had to drive 40 miles to pick up my daughter. I quickly got on the highway and realized that my mother had mentioned that Meclizine might make me drowsy. Drowsy?? I felt like I hadn’t slept for a year, I felt like if I was any worse I would sleep all the way down the high way. I knew I had to pick up Claire, but could I do it? I drove south to Basha and by this time, I knew it was the meds. I got there, put claire in the car, and called my mother. I told her to talk to me all the way home and keep me awake. She and my sister did just that. I made it the last 17 miles, hobbled into the house, tossed a DVD in the machine for Claire and fell into my bed for three hours. I woke up, ate, and went back to bed. This morning I stayed far away from the Meclinzine. I would rather be dizzy than doped.

The last week or so I’ve been sick. Nothing too wild, but I’ve been dizzy for several days now, to the point where two nights this week I could not even stay awake. Originally I thought it was just innocuous but then I couldn’t even keep my eyes open. My mother-in-law was worried about my blood pressure, but my first thought was that I was too young. I’m only 33, but as a friend pointed out when she saw me hobbling around the room we’re not that young. We think we are, but we’re getting older. Yesterday the nurse at my doctor’s office said I better get in there today. After he took my blood pressure and checked me out, he told me I have Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. Sounds scary eh?

This is what I thought I had before people began to scare me. It’s called "ear rocks"! Means I got rocks in my head! No seriously, they’re lose calcium deposits that haven’t been dissolved back into my system. He gave me some meds and told me to hope it goes away within two weeks. If it doesn’t, I gotta go back. Just one more reminder that we’re all mortal.

I suppose all of us are mortal. When I was 12 I began getting sick, to the point where I could not eat without vomiting. No, it’s not the most exciting thing to discuss, but that’s me. My doctor swore I had Leukemia (because my iron was so damn low), and they wanted to admit me to the hospital immediately. I obviously didn’t have Leukemia because that was 22 years ago, and I’m still here. I also didn’t have health insurance (Dad’s self employed and mom was a stay-at-homer).

Needless to say I went home that day, and my mother went straight to college to get a degree. My sister was 6 at the time, so it wasn’t like there were little ones at home anymore. They diagnosed me with Crohn’s Disease later that fall and thus began my life with illness. Medical technology and age has been good to me over the years, but I truly am defined by illness.

I never really even understood the mortality of my parents until my father had a heart attack. I cried and cried and cried. I was already living in Arizona at the time and my perspective on time is a pendulum. I always either, A) believe I have all the time in the world to be with him, or B) want to drive back "home" now and stay put.

In the last week both my father and I have had chunks of skin and flesh cut from our bodies. Dad had some sort of carcinogen cut from his forehead, and I joke with my mother than he probably looks like Harry Potter now. I’ve had moles since I’ve been in AZ (and no it has nothing to do with the sun, since I don’t get that much), and I was finally referred to a dermatologist. Today she cut the largest mole from the area that I can only refer to as my "boob". Yes, I am not skinny. Yes, I’ve got man boobs. Deal with it. Dad does too. So this lady’s there cutting away at a large mole (think pencil eraser diameter and go a little larger) from my boob while we’re making small talk. Don’t quite remember the discussion. But it reminded me of James Morrow’s book Towing Jehovah when God fell into the ocean, dead. They towed his body to the Arctic so he didn’t decompose, but along the way the people got hungry, so they cut large chunks from his chest (talk about communion!). This is how I felt (no I don’t have a God complex…. atleast I doubt it) today in the doctor’s office.

I just wish I had a camera with me!