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June 6, 2003
Taming the snarling, obnoxious snore beastIt's a wonderful pastime except for those people who happen to sleep next to someone who snores. I'm a guilty party, who began snoring in the last several years. I have to make that confession to anyone who will try to sleep within earshot of me: get to sleep first, before I do. It's almost like a Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde type of existence. By day, we mind our manners, saying excuse me if we bump into someone, or holding our mouth so we don't belch out loud. But when we doze off into slumber, we soon turn into a snarling, obnoxious beast. I don't know how my sister-in-law puts up with my brother, who snores so loud it sounds like the roof above him is going to expand and contract. It must just take some getting used to. For me the situation came to a head when my favorite niece came for a visit while I lived in a tiny, efficiency apartment in Elko. By day we had a wonderful time, cookouts in Lamoille Canyon, visiting local, beauty spots like Angel Lake and the ruins of historic ghost towns like Tuscarora. But after the first sleepless night, she elected to sleep on a mattress in a standup closet. When she still heard my snoring, she bought a box fan from K-Mart and put it next to her head while sleeping in the closet. That did the trick. After others began to wake me up at night, asking me to roll over on my side, I began to think about ways to solve the antisocial problem. Maybe there was a support group for snorers. "Hi, my name is Mark. And I snore," would be the opening to my testimonial in front of the group. I imagine another guy might get up and say, "I snored so bad, my wife kicked me out of bed six months ago and I've had to sleep on the couch." I noticed advertisements in the newspaper for a 20-minute surgery that would supposedly stop the snoring. But first, my doctor signed me up for a study at a sleep center on Rainbow Boulevard in Las Vegas. The personable female on the other end of the phone invited me to stop by at the appointed time, 10 p.m. and spend the night with them. Her feminine voice made the prospect of the sleep study sound appealing. The only problem is I couldn't have my usual nightcap, since the rules were I had to refrain from alcohol or caffeine after noon. When I showed up, the supervisor and technician, both men, got me ready for the study. The supervisor told me about the dangers of sleep apnea, the principal subject of the study, in which someone stops breathing when they snore, a serious medical condition I was told. There were several bedrooms down a hall, and a control room where the technician was monitoring machines with squiggly lines, that I assumed were hooked up to the patients. They were even recording the patients by video and audiotape while they slept; one patient was snoring loudly on a recording, which sounded pretty strange resonating throughout the control room. The technician got me all wired up to some electrodes. He even brushed aside my hair and put some blue-colored goop on my head, to hold down more electrodes where they would monitor my brain waves. The young technician, who looked like he'd rather be at some casino nightclub than monitoring patients all night, commented about wiring up a 21-year-old girl who was giggling while he did it. Sorry, you're stuck with a 50-year-old man, I thought. I asked him what his job title was. "Polysomniatic technician" he replied. That'd be a mouthful to tell a woman you met a bar. I tried to get some sleep wired up to a box with numerous electrodes, feeling like the old TV series the Billion Dollar Man. But sleep eventually came. I thought about the old cartoons, where someone had a metal cap on his head and they exchanged his brain with a chicken. I wondered whether they were able to monitor my dreams, I hoped not. Then about 2 a.m., the technician came walking back in, turned on the light and announced, "I'm going to have to split you." "Oh, OK," I replied. He meant, I'd spend the second half of the night with fewer wires, but a mask over my face. He said it was meant to even out the breathing in the mouth and nose. Soon after he left, I had to use the bathroom. I tried to sit up and all these wires and the control box went tumbling on the ground. Soon the technician came running in. I was supposed to flip a switch on the wall to summon help first. In the bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked like Darth Vader with the mask on. After some deep sleep, at 5:30 a.m., the technician woke me up again. The sleep study was over, it was time to leave. I was still dead tired and would've preferred to snooze a little longer. But fortunately, the technician said they picked up some good data. When I walked out into the predawn traffic of Rainbow Boulevard, I thought about what a joy it was to enjoy a good night's sleep. I remembered being envious as a light sleeper of those people who could snooze through World War III, like one guy on a bus when I was traveling around South America. We pulled into Salta, Argentina about midway through the morning, after an overnight trip from the Bolivian border. One man was still snoring soundly after all the passengers disembarked. The bus driver, who probably learned how to whistle from living in ranch country, walked up to the passenger, put two fingers in his mouth and let out a loud tweet next to his ears that finally awoke him from slumber. Snoring apparently is more than just a source of irritation to fellow passengers on buses, hotel dorms or other places. According to the polysomniatic technician and his supervisor, sleep apnea could wake me up at night or cause me to stop breathing. Hopefully, the results of the sleep study will give me the answer to the problem. Either that or I may be ostracized for life, having to sleep by myself, down the hall, next to some big fan to drown out the noise. Write to Mark Waite at mwaite@pvtimes.com. |
