And it works!

After alot of talking and debating, fiddling and observing, testing and adjusting, yelling, screaming... it looks like it's working.

The major problem this whole time was when the naps were bad, they were BAD. Jeremy could barely function which led to more naps.

what made a bad nap? the apnea. Jeremy did everything he could to try to reduce the sleep apnea episodes. The problem is you really can't do much to prevent them.

out of pure desperation, he ended up using the bipap machine for naps.

why didn't he do this earlier?

well, the bad part is you need to wash the damn thing every time you use it. so, 6 naps a day, 6 sets of washing. and he HATED doing that just ONCE a day. he put off needing to put on all that head gear and doing the maintenance as long as he could.

finally, after very stressed times around the house, he started using the bipap during the early morning hours, the naps he consistantly over slept in.

STILL, he had apnea episodes.

ok, so, what are these episodes? well, mostly, the ones that are the most disturbing are where he opens his mouth while asleep. When he sleeps without any aids, he snores. When he has his dental mouth guard (meant to move his jaw forward) he can actually breathe through the guard. When he is using the bipap, well, he can't breathe, his face turns a shade of purple, talk about disturbing sleep!

so, how to get his mouth to stay closed...

wrapping his head with an ace bandage? you can breathe through an ace bandage, looks funny, you drool a little, but you can do it.

using the chin strap (accessory to the bipap) AND wrapping your mouth with the ace bandage? um, no, same problem as above, just less drooling

ok, so, you can't keep your mouth closed, can you block it somehow?

mouth guard? an actual obstruction IN your mouth?

so, Jeremy takes a piece of plastic, wraps it with plastic wrap and puts that in his mouth. (have I mentioned that he's a bit crazy?)

ok, so, this kind of works, enough that he's getting better sleep, but for obvious reasons, we'd like to find a bit better method.

sports mouth guard? YES! that's it, right? just a boxing or football mouth guard?

Dunhams Sports... nope, none in stock
MC sports, I actually think that one closed
Meijer... nope
A specialty Tennis store? definitely not, but hey, you can't tell it's just Tennis when it's named something like "Smith's sporting outfiters" can you?

so, that's where we are. the naps are better with all this fiddling, he actually FORGOT to nap at his 12:30pm nap on Friday, he didn't feel tired.

so, anyone know of a boxing or football store? I'm sure we'll have one by the time anyone reads this. who knows, maybe this really IS the missing piece.

That would be wonderful.

Not only for the benefits to Jeremy's health, our family etc. but because his mother STILL THINKS he's nuts. One of the most unsupportive people I swear.

She actually said to Jeremy that if he didn't get enough REM sleep with this, he'd die. Yea, THAT'S supportive. I don't think she knows how to make an I, feeling statement. You know, like, wow, Jeremy, I had no idea you were having so much trouble you would be willing to try this. I feel (see, not so hard) I feel a little worried/scared/insert feeling here about you trying this.

no, no, ATTEMPT TO SCARE HIM AND HIS WIFE WITH SOME EQUALLY CRAZY WORST CASE SCENERIO. Now, THIS is the way to communicate in a healthy manner. The good Catholic, scare 'em, guilt 'em, shame 'em. She's a pro.

When this works, when he doesn't die from lack of REM, when he doesn't need as much help with getting up, maybe THEN she'll stop.

oh, sorry, I got lost in Neverland, there's no way a silly little thing like SUCCESS would stop the worst case thinking.

so, hopefully I'll be able to blog again soon with more success info.

sorry the blogs are few and far between. It got very VERY busy here after my surgery (I'm doing great btw) and over the last 2 weeks, we "discussed" polyphasic sleeping alot forcing Jeremy into trying more things to make this work. It was crunch time. Something had to work or the whole thing was going to be scrapped.

thanks for reading! later...

When it works...

When it works, polyphasic Jeremy is great. He has more energy, feels like doing more in general, he's happy, heathier and truely more fun to be around. Of course, when the extreme swing happens, it's kinga like having the conga dot (a single person doing a conga line) going thru your life when you least expect or want it.

Best part so far is that Jeremy is around more. Because he works most of the night, he takes off at 1:30pm and is home in time for me to get my work done. He's participating in more things with the kids, updated more on what's changed since yesterday.

A more recent best part is we have cuddle time. When the schedule works out the best, Jeremy comes to wake me at 7am and we get to cuddle and talk a bit before the house wakes up and the chaos begins. Who knows, maybe we'll have sex more than a handful of times in the next 6 months!

When it's bad. Well. When it's bad, it's pretty bad. When he is dead tired, tired enough to sleep thru the alarm (which sounds like those annoying car alarms you hear at 1am in the apartment complex for a half hour with the alternating sounds) he gets argumentative, confused, and can be down right mean.

We have a system. He instant messages me when he lays down, especially at home, and then again when he gets up. I can usually hear the alarm, but for a while, he was wearing headphones and I didn't hear a thing. I'm his backup plan. If it's been at least 30 min, I go up and wake him.

Problem being that arguing with a tired crazy man isn't exactly fun. He's argued with me about the time. He's held conversations with me regarding fictitious actions of my own, not even his, mine! He's been insulting and mean.

THIS is NOT the Jeremy anyone knows! This isn't the Jeremy I would have even expected when we signed up for this "experiment" as Jeremy likes to call it.

Jeremy is usually very laid back. He's hard to rile or make mad He ENJOYS arguing for arguing sake, devil's advocate or just being a pea under the mattress, doesn't matter. He usually chuckles, laughs, or smiles, truely enjoying the "beauty" as he calls it of the underlying irony or catch 22. During an actual fight, this is very frustrating. But being a highstrung emotional person, it's handy. I have the reaction and rather than him jumping on my roller coaster and going "weeeeeeeeeeeeeee" with hands held high, he goes "how high is this going? how many loops? why am I on this coaster?

hardest part? I had my tonsils out. Originally the doctor told me 2 weeks of not lifting more than 10 lbs (ie no kids). This made sense since Jeremy has nose surgery and had the same 2 week limitation.

But the doc told Jeremy one week. So, despite being weak from not being able to eat, even the smallest amount of water or ice cream hurt going down, and losing 12 lbs in ONE, yes ONE week, Jeremy treats me like I am milking the time off, that I'm not really THAT sick etc. He did later apologize, but that was AFTER the damage was done. I am pretty convinced that I can never have time off. No permission to be human and be so sick I can't contribute. But THAT is the Jeremy that visits when thing aren't going well. The stress and strain gets to him and he lashes out.

Happy Jeremy is great, tons of fun, mildly annoying but at least less stress. The kids like him and I can get used to the bouncing.

Good Jeremy just trudges along, doing what he can, no pressure, no tirades, then again, not much in the way of emotions at all.

Tired Jeremy is mean, vengeful and into blaming.

The thing that concerns me most is that Jeremy has already been hard to wake up. His mother battled it when he was a kid, he was late everywhere he went to college and I have had to deal for 12 years now, ever since we moved in together. I have actually come home after being out with the girls, seduced him, and all he remembers is a few minutes of the "good" part. No memory of the talking, no memory of the fondling etc. Just the end. And then what does he do? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

I don't know how we can do this long termish with these challenges. I miss my steady, even tempered husband.

I do like happy Jeremy. He's fun and I miss going out and seeing him bounce on the dance floor. Having him in for a visit is great, unless it's 11pm and I don't even have enough energy to make it up the stairs to bed much less boogie down to YMCA. But then, Happy Jeremy always visited occasionally, like the night when he had way too much to drink and announced to everyone we were moving to Trinidad. Of course, we'd never BEEN to Trinidad, but I guess that wasn't a downside to Hapy Jeremy :)

Unfortunately Tired Jeremy manages to push every trigger I have tried to defuse. even after 8 years of therapy and probably over $10,000 in therapy, I hear my father's words coming out of Jeremy's mouth and I immediately get angry. Rage angry, not"bastard, where do you get off" but "I'm going to make you pay you motherfucker. How dare you" angry. I don't much like Rage Jackie, so, when Tired Jeremy shows up, I get a little defensive and usually try to leave the room. Not exactly good for our marriage.

so, that's where we are. Jeremy is still tweeking the sleep process. He's tried many different things to go to sleep, stay asleep, wake up, monitor his sleep, time his REM, etc. It seems like every morning he has a new theory about why it is he over slept at this nap or another, or why this nap went better than that one. Mostly, I just trudge along, wake him when I know he's supposed to be up and support him as best I can

I would like to banish Tired Jeremy though. I'm afraid that won't happen until after the double break your jaw, wire it shut triech tube in your throat for 4 months happens.

so, there, that's my blog after almost a month of no entries. I hope that helps. I'm not sure it's much different than the others but this is where we are.

any ideas on how to get Tired Jeremy to leave the house forever? I'm all ears!