So my daughter reminded me of this story the other day so I thought I would post it. When my son was born back in 1994 he was about 1 week old when we noticed he snored. Now we weren’t surprised by this, my second husband could snore the paint of the wall....the seismograph people in California used to send him Christmas cards every year!
But, we mentioned the snoring to the pediatrician at our next visit and she told us it was just breathing, there was no way a baby that young could snore; they haven’t developed the muscles to do something like that yet, but we insisted, so she asked us to tape it for her, which of course we did. She was not a happy camper when she heard the tape and realized my beautiful little baby boy did in fact snore. We tried to tell her it was a family trait; everyone in my second husband’s family snored, and snored loudly, it was sort of their rite of passage.
If God Forbid both my husband and his father were sleeping in the same house they could set car alarms off within a ten mile radius. I remember when we lived with my parents temporarily while waiting for the closing on our house, my mother used to hear my husband in her bedroom which was one flight up! Meaning she was in her bedroom and could hear my husband in our bedroom through the floor, I was not implying my husband was in the bedroom with my mother; that would make this an entirely different story.
So we took my son to the ear nose and throat specialist that my doctor recommended and had him checked out. The doctor said my sons adenoids were already enlarged as were his tonsils. My son, who was a baby at the time, did not like the exam and kept squirming away, so the doctor put my son on my husband’s lap and pretended to examine my husband so my son would see it was all in fun. Unfortunately for my husband, as the doctor examined him he found my husband’s adenoids, tonsils and uvula were severely enlarged and suspected he had Sleep Apnea. So what started out as a visit for my son, ended up as a visit to the surgeon for my husband.
My husband ended up having severe obstructive Sleep Apnea, and we were told my son would most likely have it as well, but was too young for surgery. So he would be monitored and as he got older, would most likely have the same procedure my husband would soon have. Meanwhile they gave my husband a CPAP machine, which stood for Continuous Pulmonary Air Pressure, which was basically a mask he wore at night which pushed air into his mouth to keep his throat from closing in the middle of the night. If you have never had the pleasure of sleeping with someone that has this machine, let me enlighten you on what you are missing.
It was like sleeping next to Darth Vader on a good night. Which for us was ironic since we are Star Wars fans, and named our son Luke, so suddenly my husband was fitting the role of Luke`s father perfectly. Worse yet, the mask would make him sweat, so in the middle of the night in his sleep he would take the mask off his face and always ended up placing it right by my ear on my pillow. Every night I would wake up to what amounted to an obscene phone call from my pillow. It was an interesting few months.
Eventually my husband had the surgery, which back then was long, and not done with a laser. He had a hard time because his tonsils were wrapped up in the skin of his throat and he had a longer than anticipated recovery time because of that. At the time he was a mechanic, and the surgery had affected his voice to the point that when he would start to tell people what was wrong with their car, they would face him and talk slowly, assuming he was deaf by the way he sounded.
Another wonderful side effect was that smoking was hard for him. Now, I know what most of you are thinking, good, great time for him to quit, but this was my husband who once was asked by a friend if he was stranded on a desert island and could only take one thing with him would it be a beautiful naked playboy model, an endless supply of steak or cigarettes…he answered cigarettes. Now he did hesitate for the slightest moment before answering, but that was because he was debating over the steaks, the naked woman never even entered into his equation. He was teased about that for quite some time.
Anyway, back to the dilemma, my husband was an avid smoker and enjoyed menthol only at that. I also was a smoker and smoked the same brand he did. So we began a routine that after a while people asked us to perform at parties, like it was the odd free entertainment for the evening. I would light up a cigarette and take my drag, then on my next drag I would put my mouth up against my husbands, almost as if we were about to kiss and then he would circle his lips around mine and I would blow the smoke into his mouth. I know, even writing it now makes me wonder what sick mental illnesses we both had at the time, but when you got to smoke you got to smoke, and since it was too rough on his recovering skin to take a drag full force, this was the remedy he had come up with.
I realize now that I have digressed completely from what my original purpose of this story was, but as I wrote this and began to reminisce about that time, I realized the whole smoke story was too good to pass on. Come on, admit it, you are now sitting there thinking about what that must have looked like every time I had to do it, in the car at red lights, sitting in a bar, outside at lunch when I would visit him at the shop he worked at; it was a site to say the least.
I do believe once, while driving we were given more than one dirty look from people who thought we were getting amorous while driving down the highway. At least I didn’t have to do it forever, six months later his throat was as good as new, and I no longer had to look like I was giving him mouth to mouth everywhere we went.
Anyway, my son grew up and just as predicted began to show signs of Sleep Apnea. He even had night terrors as my husband had always had, due to the fact that he was not sleeping properly from the apnea. During these times my son would appear completely awake, but in reality be totally asleep. We began to know the signs of when this was happening, especially since I had had experience watching my husband going through it. Remind me to write you a blog on the time my husband was sleeping while I was on the phone with my friend and discussing reincarnation. It is a great story, as he somehow brought in what we were saying into his dream and ended up having an interesting night terror involving reincarnating dogs, vampires and a creepy old house.
Sorry, I digressed again, however I have warned you in the past that I tend to do that, so I’m covered. So prior to his surgery, which I am glad to say was successful and a funny story in its own right, but I will save that one for another time as well, my son was prone to getting up in the middle of the night and not knowing he was awake, walking around in his dreams.
One particular night, my daughter and I were sitting in the living room watching TV late at night, and down comes my son. We knew he was asleep, by then we could tell his sleep walking state from his normal state. He walked into the bathroom, turned on the light, dropped his drawers, left the door open and began to pee. My daughter, who from her angle could see him, burst out laughing, fell off her chair and started to cry from the laughter.
As I asked what was going on, and looked, there was my son, his pants around his ankles as he peed in the toilet, except since he was dreaming he hadn’t noticed our cat had been napping on the toilet as he so often did much to my chagrin, so my son was actually peeing on the cat.
The cat ran off, looking quite perturbed I might add, and my son never woke up. He pulled up his pants, walked back upstairs and got right back into bed. We continued to laugh for what was probably a good hour. It wasn’t a totally bad thing though; at least it stopped my cat from sleeping on my toilet!
My son still gets a kick out the story, although when I tell it at parties or to his friends he tends to get embarrassed. But hey, that is what moms are for. Meanwhile, since my cat was now afraid to sleep on the toilet he had to find another even more annoying spot to sleep, because after all that is what cats do. So now the damn cat sleeps in the bathtub. Do you have any idea how scary it is to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and suddenly hear movement in your shower and see the curtain start to sway as if Obi-Wan Kenobi is behind it practicing his mind tricks...let me tell you it’s a good thing you’re on the toilet when this happens because it scares the shit out of you.
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