Hello, I blog!
I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.
“You don’t look like someone with Sleep Apnea!”
… this is the sleep apnea variant of “you don’t look sick!” – the common (but unwanted) remark I get. But unlike the latter, this remark actually makes a lot of sense because this was a shock to me too.
Oops, I’ve disappeared for close to two months. Let’s just say that too many things have happened during this period.
Last month, I was in the hospital for close to 2 and a half weeks for an acute URTI (upper respiratory tract infection) and asthma that went full gangster on me. Then, it led to a secondary URTI because of my immunocompromised status. (Also adding to the drama was 3 blocked IV lines and getting poked a grand total of 10 times.)
And if things weren’t dramatic enough, I was diagnosed with a severe form of sleep apnea in the midst of all this.
What is Sleep Apnea?
It’s a breathing disorder which occurs while you sleep. Basically, you stop breathing for multiple seconds at a time.
As your oxygen saturation drops and carbon dioxide builds up in the body, your body’s autonomic systems will rouse you from your sleep to breathe.
The consequence of this is, due to the multiple (breathless) awakenings it’s impossible to be well-rested.
There are two main types of sleep apnea – Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), where your airway collapses and gets blocked, which causes you to stop breathing. Then, there’s Central Sleep Apnea (CSA), where your brain fails to send a signal to your respiratory system to breathe.
Mine is mainly OSA, with some episodes possibly caused by CSA. At my worst hour, my breathing stopped 54 times with the longest episode lasting 49 seconds.
I can’t even hold my breath this long when I’m awake!
My journey fighting depression
2020 was the year I finally acknowledged I had undiagnosed depression and decided to seek help for it.
The signs were all too clear. My online presence is largely angsty. Even though this blog is silent, I’m extremely active on Instagram. I upped my activity there since 2014 in an attempt to focus on more positive posts (since it’s more photo-based). While it worked initially, I was still prone to outbursts of angry posts as time went on, and especially so after the Instagram Stories feature appeared (where posts disappear after 24 hours).
A colleague/teammate of mine described my posts as “dark” – which I had to absolutely agree.
It was nearing the end of 2019 – a particularly bad year where I had prolonged loss of voice entirely (it’s back now, luckily) and a bad knee injury which relegated me to a wheelchair that pushed me to the edge.
I was aware I had low self-esteem, especially so after getting hit by one chronic medical condition after another. I always felt I was an inferior human being, and that I was nothing but a burden. Considering how 2019 was also the year I exhausted my hospitalization and medical leave and had to eventually go on unpaid leave, my self-esteem took a nosedive.
With my brain on overdrive with self-deprecating thoughts, I decided to review my Instagram Stories archive.
And… holy shit.
I even scrolled far back as 2017. At that point, I knew exactly why I can count at least 5 friends who have either unfollowed me on Instagram or muted me. (I’m that active on Instagram that it’s obvious to me when engagement from certain people have dropped to 0, haha!)
I was posting all those?!?!
I just wanted to dig a hole and hide myself in it.
My need for a sense of control
After more than 4 months of non-stop battling and being away from work for more than 2, I’ve come to several realizations.
I am generally someone who is used to setting schedules. Complete task A by next week, achieve task B in 2 days. That sort of thing. I like milestones. It’s just my programmer’s/management instincts at work. Progress has to be in the form of something trackable so I feel more encouraged.
But apparently, you can’t force a schedule on your body’s recovery.
I’ve aimed to “get well by June”. Didn’t work. “Okay, two more weeks to settle things.” Didn’t work either. “Okay, I give it until end of July.” Nope, nope, nope. The fever continued and I got more and more frustrated.
Eventually, I decided to let my body set its own pace. And I put myself into zen mode. Stop forcing my body, stop overthinking, overanalyzing. Just do what I need to do to help – complete rest, lots of water, meds.
Instead. I set schedules on my action plans. If I don’t feel better in 5 days, do X. If minimal improvement in 2 weeks, do Y.
X and Y may or may not help. Usually it doesn’t. But at least, it’s some semblance of control. This whole thing was seemingly out of my control and I didn’t like it.
Not giving up, and looking forward to better days.
Find Me
