That’s what a dream is!
I received my equipment from my DME and am sleeping well, even dreaming. I don’t want to make a big deal of this, but it is a panacea for me.
Woohoo!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
US Open
I doubt anyone will be checking my predictions, but here they are. Mike Weir, Lee Westwood or Retief Goosen will win the US Open. My money is on Weirsy.
Spike
Spike
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Issues
For the last five years I have been ignoring an issue that I need to confront. I am tired. My exhaustion affects my job, my life, my health and adversely impacts the lives of my children. I have ignored this problem because I felt that I was just lazy, but the issue has become more important because of the nature of my current employment. When one diagnosis oneself with laziness, it leads to a lack of self confidence; it’s your own dirty little secret. I sneak naps in my car during lunch, before my kids get home and when I am supposed to working independently. These furtive sessions of sleep make me feel lazy and selfish and contribute to a lack of self esteem.
I’ve been avoiding the issue. In 2003 I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. I am 6’1” tall and weighed, at the time, 195 pounds, certainly not svelte, but not obese. I found out through a sleep study. I snored loudly and told my doctor and she ordered a sleep study. Sleep studies normally come in two parts; the first part is a night hooked up to wires that measure several functions. It revealed that I stopped breathing for significant periods of time and those stoppages woke me up. In a normal night of sleep, I got about 1 hour of restorative sleep.
I was asked to return for a second night of titration. In titration, you are hooked up to a Continuous Positive Air Pressure (CPAP) machine through a mask. The air pressure prevents your soft palate from collapsing which stops your breathing and wakes you up.
I woke up the next day feeling good, but not great. As the day wore on, I found myself energized – I wasn’t sleepy and had energy. By the end of the day, I felt like Superman – an entire day of work, 36 holes of golf and I went home and made dinner. Wow!
I was prescribed a CPAP machine but I was quitting my job and moving. I moved and had no support to deal with the issues associated with learning to live with a CPAP. I became noncompliant because the mask would leave bruises on my forehead and was causing scar tissue on the bridge of my nose.
Eventually, I sought help for a deviated septum. I had septoplasty and turbinate reduction and thought this would solve my apnea problem. Apnea is typically, and erroneously, associated with the obese. I was in denial.
This year, things came to a head. I had an inordinately difficult work schedule and had gained about 20 pounds since my sleep study. I found myself sleeping in my car, sleeping for 12-14 hours every night and sneaking naps like a crackhead sneaks hits. I’ve found that apnea causes hypertension, irritability and an inability to concentrate. It also makes the sufferer seek energy through carbs, leading to weight gain, among other attractive side effects.
So, I asked for another sleep study, which revealed, …severe hypopnea – a reduction in breathing but not a complete stoppage like apnea. However, my oxygen levels were reduced to 74 percent and I had 77 events in 4 hours, meaning…for every eight hours of sleep that I got, I got about one hour of real sleep. This explains the naps.
Relief, but not remediation, yet. I am currently waiting for delivery of a new CPAP and am worried about overcoming the challenges. But, I am looking forward to feeling like Superman again. Having a restorative night’s rest is high on my pert chart. I hope to be able to complete my work, to play with my kids and to get some shit done around the house. None of which, in my opinion, is too much to ask.
I am now around 210 pounds. Not ideal, but not clinically obese. My BMI is 27. I am 45 years old and look forward to many more years of productive life, raising my kids, playing golf and growing old as a productive member of society. I write this in the hope that anyone reading it that is suffering from lethargy, hypertension, irritability or daytime sleepiness, will take the hint and get a sleep study. I know the CPAP will solve my problems – assuming I am compliant and not really lazy. Take it seriously, it can make a difference.
I’ve been avoiding the issue. In 2003 I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. I am 6’1” tall and weighed, at the time, 195 pounds, certainly not svelte, but not obese. I found out through a sleep study. I snored loudly and told my doctor and she ordered a sleep study. Sleep studies normally come in two parts; the first part is a night hooked up to wires that measure several functions. It revealed that I stopped breathing for significant periods of time and those stoppages woke me up. In a normal night of sleep, I got about 1 hour of restorative sleep.
I was asked to return for a second night of titration. In titration, you are hooked up to a Continuous Positive Air Pressure (CPAP) machine through a mask. The air pressure prevents your soft palate from collapsing which stops your breathing and wakes you up.
I woke up the next day feeling good, but not great. As the day wore on, I found myself energized – I wasn’t sleepy and had energy. By the end of the day, I felt like Superman – an entire day of work, 36 holes of golf and I went home and made dinner. Wow!
I was prescribed a CPAP machine but I was quitting my job and moving. I moved and had no support to deal with the issues associated with learning to live with a CPAP. I became noncompliant because the mask would leave bruises on my forehead and was causing scar tissue on the bridge of my nose.
Eventually, I sought help for a deviated septum. I had septoplasty and turbinate reduction and thought this would solve my apnea problem. Apnea is typically, and erroneously, associated with the obese. I was in denial.
This year, things came to a head. I had an inordinately difficult work schedule and had gained about 20 pounds since my sleep study. I found myself sleeping in my car, sleeping for 12-14 hours every night and sneaking naps like a crackhead sneaks hits. I’ve found that apnea causes hypertension, irritability and an inability to concentrate. It also makes the sufferer seek energy through carbs, leading to weight gain, among other attractive side effects.
So, I asked for another sleep study, which revealed, …severe hypopnea – a reduction in breathing but not a complete stoppage like apnea. However, my oxygen levels were reduced to 74 percent and I had 77 events in 4 hours, meaning…for every eight hours of sleep that I got, I got about one hour of real sleep. This explains the naps.
Relief, but not remediation, yet. I am currently waiting for delivery of a new CPAP and am worried about overcoming the challenges. But, I am looking forward to feeling like Superman again. Having a restorative night’s rest is high on my pert chart. I hope to be able to complete my work, to play with my kids and to get some shit done around the house. None of which, in my opinion, is too much to ask.
I am now around 210 pounds. Not ideal, but not clinically obese. My BMI is 27. I am 45 years old and look forward to many more years of productive life, raising my kids, playing golf and growing old as a productive member of society. I write this in the hope that anyone reading it that is suffering from lethargy, hypertension, irritability or daytime sleepiness, will take the hint and get a sleep study. I know the CPAP will solve my problems – assuming I am compliant and not really lazy. Take it seriously, it can make a difference.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Brother Code
I watched “Milk” tonight and I came to the realization that my brother set many landmarks that influenced the person I am today. I never completely understood his motivations for the things he did, but it seems clearer now. I think, in his own way, he was clearing the way for me to be accepting and non judgmental. And, he did it in a way that was acceptable to me – he moved me towards acceptance and tolerance in a manner that wasn’t offensive – I didn’t realize it was happening.
As a 16 year old, I thought we went to drink and play pool at The Black Crow because they didn’t card me. We could drink and play pool and be cool. Sure, there were a lot of fags there, but we were just drinking and playing pool, and they let us.
As a 17 year old, we went to Darcelle’s to watch female impersonators because he liked music and pageantry, what did I know? Between Darcelle’s and Rocky Horror, it was all the same shit – I was just hanging with my big brother.
His fascination with the assassination of Harvey Milk never clicked for me. We were watching it on TV and he surmised that Dan White was a closet homosexual when he murdered Milk and Moscone. But he was obsessed with it. I kept going to fag bars with him – they were the only places that would let me drink underage.
Much later, I moved to his town. He was thinner, cleaner and more private than I was used to. I adopted many of his habits – they just made sense. It was humid, hence the excessive use of baby powder. We swam to stay thin, rode bikes to be healthy, groomed ourselves to be clean. I never suspected.
When he came out to me on his porch, over a Camel Light and a Bud Light, I wasn’t surprised. It really didn’t matter to me, he was my brother and I loved him. “I really don’t care, I love you.”
“I know that. I have always known that. But, what you don’t realize is that I am afraid of being fired. I am afraid mom and dad won’t love me. I am afraid of not having kids, of being persecuted because of who I am, and I have been this way ever since I can remember. You read Sports Illustrated, I looked at the pictures.”
That conversation initiated an internal journey of discovery for me. I began to analyze my relations with other people and other cultures. I took to “chaperoning” my brother to gay bars – disco and bear bars. He tended to prefer the bear bars. The guests thought we were a couple and were shocked to find out that we were brothers – I think it gave him a distance to cruise without being engaged.
For me, I found it liberating to hang with gays without being objectified. Sure, some dudes hit on me, I’m not a troll after all, but I had an in, my brother. I find now that I am always looking for the in – I want to be accepted in different cultures; black, Hispanic, gay – all of them.
Middle aged white man wants to be accepted in all cultures – that’s my personal statement. I still powder post shower, shower religiously – sometimes three times a day, trim body hair, use cologne – I am well groomed. The grooming thing is a part of the legacy my brother left me. Regret for using perjorative terms – that’s the rest of the legacy.
Peace!
Spike
As a 16 year old, I thought we went to drink and play pool at The Black Crow because they didn’t card me. We could drink and play pool and be cool. Sure, there were a lot of fags there, but we were just drinking and playing pool, and they let us.
As a 17 year old, we went to Darcelle’s to watch female impersonators because he liked music and pageantry, what did I know? Between Darcelle’s and Rocky Horror, it was all the same shit – I was just hanging with my big brother.
His fascination with the assassination of Harvey Milk never clicked for me. We were watching it on TV and he surmised that Dan White was a closet homosexual when he murdered Milk and Moscone. But he was obsessed with it. I kept going to fag bars with him – they were the only places that would let me drink underage.
Much later, I moved to his town. He was thinner, cleaner and more private than I was used to. I adopted many of his habits – they just made sense. It was humid, hence the excessive use of baby powder. We swam to stay thin, rode bikes to be healthy, groomed ourselves to be clean. I never suspected.
When he came out to me on his porch, over a Camel Light and a Bud Light, I wasn’t surprised. It really didn’t matter to me, he was my brother and I loved him. “I really don’t care, I love you.”
“I know that. I have always known that. But, what you don’t realize is that I am afraid of being fired. I am afraid mom and dad won’t love me. I am afraid of not having kids, of being persecuted because of who I am, and I have been this way ever since I can remember. You read Sports Illustrated, I looked at the pictures.”
That conversation initiated an internal journey of discovery for me. I began to analyze my relations with other people and other cultures. I took to “chaperoning” my brother to gay bars – disco and bear bars. He tended to prefer the bear bars. The guests thought we were a couple and were shocked to find out that we were brothers – I think it gave him a distance to cruise without being engaged.
For me, I found it liberating to hang with gays without being objectified. Sure, some dudes hit on me, I’m not a troll after all, but I had an in, my brother. I find now that I am always looking for the in – I want to be accepted in different cultures; black, Hispanic, gay – all of them.
Middle aged white man wants to be accepted in all cultures – that’s my personal statement. I still powder post shower, shower religiously – sometimes three times a day, trim body hair, use cologne – I am well groomed. The grooming thing is a part of the legacy my brother left me. Regret for using perjorative terms – that’s the rest of the legacy.
Peace!
Spike
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
I Write!
My friends ask me if I still write, now that I am busy teaching and stuff. I agonize, but I conclude...
I write these days. Sure I do, I write. “Lacks development of key ideas - suggest you organize before writing.” Sometimes I write “your conventions are not up to an appropriate level for this class. I suggest you down track.” Other times I write “refer to the rubric - your meaning is unclear.” Often, it is just “Lacks a controlling idea.”
What is the point? I still write! I may not write myself, but I write. My writing may not be an expression of my own ideas, my own thoughts and dreams dribbling and drabbling onto paper, it may not be fulfillment of my ideas rolling out of my brain with the tick, tick, tick of the computer keys signifying a stream of my consciousness, but, I write. I may lack the joy of ideas rolling out of my brain like the waves of a noreaster piling up on Jones Beach, or a jag of writing about things that make me pause and say, what the hell? But, I still write.
Sometimes writing is just writing. Just expressing yourself, putting words on paper, as it were, is still writing. It doesn’t have to be development of a novel, or another chapter in the memoir; sometimes writing is just about writing. And, sometimes, telling my students to organize first is all the writing I do. And, that is okay.
Sometimes. Sometimes.
But not now. I feel an itch. I will scratch!
Spike
I write these days. Sure I do, I write. “Lacks development of key ideas - suggest you organize before writing.” Sometimes I write “your conventions are not up to an appropriate level for this class. I suggest you down track.” Other times I write “refer to the rubric - your meaning is unclear.” Often, it is just “Lacks a controlling idea.”
What is the point? I still write! I may not write myself, but I write. My writing may not be an expression of my own ideas, my own thoughts and dreams dribbling and drabbling onto paper, it may not be fulfillment of my ideas rolling out of my brain with the tick, tick, tick of the computer keys signifying a stream of my consciousness, but, I write. I may lack the joy of ideas rolling out of my brain like the waves of a noreaster piling up on Jones Beach, or a jag of writing about things that make me pause and say, what the hell? But, I still write.
Sometimes writing is just writing. Just expressing yourself, putting words on paper, as it were, is still writing. It doesn’t have to be development of a novel, or another chapter in the memoir; sometimes writing is just about writing. And, sometimes, telling my students to organize first is all the writing I do. And, that is okay.
Sometimes. Sometimes.
But not now. I feel an itch. I will scratch!
Spike
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Aging Ungracefully
Back from vacation, a few pounds heavier for the travel, but ready to get back to work...sort of. I managed to revisit a previous midlife crisis today and went out and bought a pair of Rollerblades. I'm about 6'4" wearing them and because I am so old and decrepit, I wear all the protective gear, including a brain bucket. The whole family had to come out and watch me try to make it down the street, various appellations such as "loser" and "dork" being bandied about as I trundled off.
It's much harder than I remember. Within one hundred yards my shins were burning, my stomach and back muscles twitching, exerting herculean efforts to keep me upright. I managed to make it around the block, my forehead slick with sweat, heaving to breathe. I couldn't get those skates off fast enough.
Cooked dinner, grilled salmon, couscous and brocolli, drank a beer and took another trip around the block, this time on the street instead of the sidewalk. Much mo betta! We'll see how long this lasts.
Late.
Spike
It's much harder than I remember. Within one hundred yards my shins were burning, my stomach and back muscles twitching, exerting herculean efforts to keep me upright. I managed to make it around the block, my forehead slick with sweat, heaving to breathe. I couldn't get those skates off fast enough.
Cooked dinner, grilled salmon, couscous and brocolli, drank a beer and took another trip around the block, this time on the street instead of the sidewalk. Much mo betta! We'll see how long this lasts.
Late.
Spike
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The Measure
A Christian to a Lion?
I’m off to be observed tomorrow. Two years of Graduate School in Education that resulted in a teaching credential, expertise in pedagogy ranging from Erickson to Piaget, two years for a Masters in English, from Walpole to Emerson, all to be judged in a 42 minute lesson. I either can or can’t, based on 42 minutes; tenure and career weigh in the balance.
Is this any way to judge a teacher? I’m ready to call it good and move on. I have a much better paying career waiting for me, but, I want to teach, so, I have to go through it. Do I have an appropriate aim? A valid Do Now? Is there a medial summary and a summative evaluation? Tomorrow will tell whether I can teach or not, 40 minutes to justify my existence, my continued presence on the payroll. Is this how we judge our teachers? Forty two minutes?
What about my student that won the Poet Laureate award? What about my student that won an essay contest? What about my student that connected topic sentences? What about them? What about that? As Allen Iverson would say, “We talking about practice?”
Forty two minutes. What about my ability to teach life as a former General Manager? As a Sales Rep? Does that count?
No. It’s all about forty minutes tomorrow. Hit it, or hit the road, the world of a teacher, untenured. Rock or walk. No child left behind, the Bush legacy.
I’ll rock it, then I might walk. I got a paycheck waiting, I don’t need this job. This job needs me.
Peace, and maybe, out for good.
Spike
I’m off to be observed tomorrow. Two years of Graduate School in Education that resulted in a teaching credential, expertise in pedagogy ranging from Erickson to Piaget, two years for a Masters in English, from Walpole to Emerson, all to be judged in a 42 minute lesson. I either can or can’t, based on 42 minutes; tenure and career weigh in the balance.
Is this any way to judge a teacher? I’m ready to call it good and move on. I have a much better paying career waiting for me, but, I want to teach, so, I have to go through it. Do I have an appropriate aim? A valid Do Now? Is there a medial summary and a summative evaluation? Tomorrow will tell whether I can teach or not, 40 minutes to justify my existence, my continued presence on the payroll. Is this how we judge our teachers? Forty two minutes?
What about my student that won the Poet Laureate award? What about my student that won an essay contest? What about my student that connected topic sentences? What about them? What about that? As Allen Iverson would say, “We talking about practice?”
Forty two minutes. What about my ability to teach life as a former General Manager? As a Sales Rep? Does that count?
No. It’s all about forty minutes tomorrow. Hit it, or hit the road, the world of a teacher, untenured. Rock or walk. No child left behind, the Bush legacy.
I’ll rock it, then I might walk. I got a paycheck waiting, I don’t need this job. This job needs me.
Peace, and maybe, out for good.
Spike
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