It’s a Thursday Morning - A Sleep Apnoea Diagnosis

It's a Thursday morning.

It's a Thursday morning, and an expected phone call. A planned phone call from a doctor, who has analysed a sleep study I was referred to ridiculously quickly after I went to my GP and said "hey can I get this thing I know I have checked out".

Quickly enough that I had to reschedule it from the first date offered, actually. As I was going to Scotland.

Anna in front of Loch Ness, Scotland

Anyway, what matters is the call didn't come out of the blue. Neither did the prognosis.

I have my work systems all paused, waiting - my boss fully aware I'm expecting a call - and it happens on time. I can tell by the tone of the doctor's voice that nothing he has to say to me is overly concerning to him. I can also tell he knows it's still life changing, and he's expecting some sort of reaction from me.

He doesn't really get one. 

The thing about knowing something is coming is that it really allows you to keep it together, in the moment.

I'm calm on the phone. More than calm, almost jovial. I make jokes and ask questions and take notes - which is very unlike me but it's like I know I'll want to refer back to them later. 

I’ve read a lot about sleep apnoea over the years. There’s been many a google search deep dive and Wikipedia spiral but there’s still a lot I don’t know. I know that an apnoea occurs when the throat muscles relax and close the airway in the throat, which means I stop breathing in my sleep. I do not know that my body is so used to this happening that, sometimes, I stop breathing without my airways physically closing.

The doctor has lots of interesting things to tell me.

It’s a mix of obstructive (when my body causes an apnoea) and restrictive (when my brain does it on its own) sleep apnoea.

This happens to me, on average, 29.7 times an hour, for 30 seconds or more at a time.

I have no idea what a full night’s sleep actually feels like.

They’re going to give me a machine to help my airways stay open as I sleep.

I write all of this down as he talks. He asks how I’m feeling and I say, “Honestly, I’m fine. I knew it was coming one day, I guess that day’s today.” He seems genuinely surprised by how well I’m taking it.

I guess I’ve had a lot of time to process it.

There is a difference, though, in knowing something is coming and then facing the reality of it.

I message my best friend, who in a stroke of luck is currently in the spare room of my flat having stayed over the night before (for fun reasons, not for this - but I am so very grateful for the timing). I ask if she’s awake yet. I tell her I need a hug.

When I climb into bed with her 30 seconds later, the lights are off and the curtains are still closed, and I cry.

I cry even though part of my brain is telling me it’s stupid to do so. That I knew this was coming, and that this is something that will help me, even if I wasn’t expecting it just yet.

My best friend lets me cry in her arms. She tells me it’s going to be OK, and that she’s proud of me for listening to my body to get it the help it needs (a thing I have been notoriously bad at doing in the near decade we’ve known each other). I stay curled up with her for as long as I can justify before I crawl back to my desk.

I pretend I will be able to get on with work for the rest of the day, but I spend the next 20 minutes messaging the people who need to know. I tell them the news as if it’s exciting, not as if the longest I can go without crying at that point is a generous 120 seconds. My parents, my brothers, my work wife all get messages. I decide to tell my flatmates when I next see them, presumably in the kitchen at some point between meetings when we’re all at the point in our day that needs a cup of tea. Maybe I will have calmed down by then.

The only other person I’m truly honest with is my girlfriend of two months - well, it’s only a couple of weeks since we really talked about it, but two months since it started. It feels like an unbelievably short time into a relationship to be like “So this is going great but what this situation really needs is a machine that fires oxygenated air pressure directly into my face throughout the night. Every night. For the rest of our lives.” but it’s not like I have a choice to say anything different.

I tell my boss - who’s incredibly supportive given her own chronic condition and makes me realise oh yeah, this is a chronic medical condition? wow - and I remember during the conversation that another major change in my life right now involves leaving the company I’ve worked with for 11 years (to the day of this phone call, I shit you not). I have six weeks left with them and I am suddenly terrified.

Everything is changing at once, it seems.

Everything is changing, and I have no idea what a full night’s sleep actually feels like.