I Love My CPAP Machine

I haven’t written in 2 weeks because I’ve been very busy sleeping.

Two weeks ago I spent 2 nights at a sleeping lab where they tested me for sleep apnea.

I have Obstructive Sleep Apnea. It’s a sleep disorder.

That means that I stop breathing while I sleep, sometimes up to 35 times per hour. This is not good for my brain or body, which need oxygen to function.

The doctor said I had a choice; I could have an operation with a 50% chance of success or use a CPAP machine (Continuous Postitive Airway Pressure) with a 100% rate of success.

Last week I had 2 appointments at the sleep lab: Monday and Thursday nights. I slept with the CPAP machine for the first time Monday night. Tuesday morning I woke up and felt like “a million bucks!”
I had energy the entire day and didn’t yawn or feel tired once. It was an incredible feeling.

I was so excited, that I called up the hospital and asked (begged) them to let me ta a CPAP machine home that night to practice with until I returned on Thursday night. They agreed and I’ve been sleeping with it ever since.

I feel re-born. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to make it through the day without constantly yawning and feeling tired and stressed.

The funny thing is, I didn’t even realize that I was tired and stressed. When I was together with people, I always had energy, but when I was alone, I always felt like taking a nap and often did.

The CPAP machine is not loud.

The mask I wear is comfortable. I chose the mask that covers only my nose. It’s very soft and flexible.

My husband is not repulsed by it.

He says it’s better than listening to me stop breathing.

I’m actually falling in love with my machine because I feel so fantastic.

The only drawback is that when I go to sleep at night I now look like Darth Vader .

140 Spaces Worth of Words

Another day in the Twitter trenches is over. I have many new followers. Today’s total is 328, but I’m still not exactly sure why. I just keep getting emails  saying that I have a new follower. I try to write little notes to them saying “thank you”, but it’s too difficult to keep up with it all. I’ve made a few connections with people in the form of direct messages, but there’s never really a chat, only 140 spaces worth of words.

I keep asking myself, what it takes to be interesting on twitter? I asked my Peeps or Tweeps  but no one answered. I guess because they’re not really my Peeps or Tweeps yet. I haven’t earned their interest. Most of the people following me are only following me to grow their own list of followers. I’m not having fun yet, probably because I spend most of my time thinking of something clever or meaningful to say in only 140 spaces. I feel like I’m at a really, really big party and I’m the only person not drinking.

Three things I learned about twitter today

1. It’s who you know.

2. It’s  like high school.

3. It’s nice to have followers, but nicer to have friends.

I began my twitter adventure yesterday. I read a blog post that said if you follow 12 well known people on twitter, you’ll attract many followers.

I was curious and I wanted to try it.

It works. When you follow a well known person, or have them on your list of friends, their “famous” name appears at the top of your twitter feed for a moment and it looks like you are friends with them.

Followers of that person think you might be important and they decide to follow you too.

After becoming a follower of the chosen 12, I found a list someone had posted that had names of 249 people who would follow you back if you followed them. On this list were people like Obama, Nasa, Starbucks and Guy Kawasaki. I clicked on a few of them to follow and right away I got several  auto- responder emails informing me that they’d be following me too. I think there is some sort of contest going on to see who can get the most followers.

I was feeling lucky, so I registered for a site called ifollow where 700 people will follow you if you follow them. I was on fire!

I clicked on about 20 new friends and waited.

It felt a little like the popularity contests in high school used to feel to me, as I clicked on the names I thought “please follow me too.”

I realized this was not mentally healthy for me but I was hooked.

Then, after trying to read many (7) of my new followers profiles to decide if I wanted to follow them, and sending “thank you for the follow” messages to many of them, I gave up. It was a bigger job than I had expected.

I stopped to eat some pizza with my daughter and realized that in my robotic  “get more followers” frenzy, I had forgotten that I was on a low carb diet.

I knew at that moment, after the pizza was gone of course, that things had gone too far. I was in over my head.

My mailbox, that I had so painstakingly emptied last week when I was in my  GTD “getting things done” mode, was filled with over 150 emails from people who were following me. I realized that I didn’t know any of them.

None of my friends use twitter. They’re all on Facebook. I know that I’ll meet some fabulous people on twitter, but I’m not sure how long it will take me to get to know them. To relax, I logged on to my Facebook page and talked to some old friends. The world seemed  somehow slower, calm and peaceful there.

What are your experiences with twitter?

Does anyone have any tips for me?

Is there a better way of managing my tweets?

Should I increase my meds?