Loyalty is something I've been thinking about lately. I posted the following quote to Facebook the other day:
“Forgiving unforgivable things is real forgiveness.Loving unlovable things is real love.
Seeing someone’s inner most monster
and choosing to stay is true loyalty.
(It’s not something everyone can do)”
― Cody Edward Lee Miller
It's a quote that spoke to me, in thinking about the perseverance and conviction and dedication it takes to be loyal at that level; something I think I am very good at.
But the first comment I received took this in a different direction. To paraphrase, the comment, from a good and deep-thinking friend of mine, pointed out that to be careful of the difference between loyalty and self-sacrifice, and used domestic violence as an example of that. Then a second friend shared a thought about an even darker situation which I won't reveal.
But it's a good point...loyalty is something that, though I believe is an ideal trait to have, does have it's limitations in certain scenarios. Specific to the above, loyalty is dependent on the definition of the term "monster". If using the term "monster" in the context brought by those two comments, then yes, loyalty is not good, but in fact harmful. But if using the term "monster" in the context of someone's inner struggles, or inner darkness, then that plays itself out differently. In those cases, loyalty may be a lifeline in the most extreme circumstances.
Where does one draw the line between when loyalty is a positive attribute, versus a harmful one? The short answer is that is highly dependent on each specific situation. I'm not sure if there is a single blanket statement that can be made, generic enough, to cover the pros and cons of loyalty, outside of a few extreme cases.
But isn't that really true about most things? That blanket statements are really hard to create accurately? That blanket statements really don't apply well in reality? And isn't that one of the areas where our society is suffering right now; this seemingly constant need to boil a subject or topic down to a small handful of short, blanket statements; to then justify resting judgments on? And then, to create belief structures or communities (in the figurative sense) based on a series of rigid blanket statements - in order to justify our behavior, or in an effort to control other's behavior, for seemingly good or bad?
But what's the opposite of a blanket statement?
Balance.
Everything in balance. Nothing lies at either polar opposite extreme. The truth is somewhere towards the middle. And so is true with loyalty. Loyalty in balance. You can't be loyal to others all the time and also be loyal to yourself all the time, either; but there is a time and place for each.
Maybe if we focus on what is right in each situation; analyze it for what it is; and then act accordingly, a lot of things will work themselves out for the better.
In my last post, I wrote about the trials and tribulations of getting my resting pulse and blood pressure under control, and I wrote that in my initial annual physical (in March 2017), when those issues were uncovered, my doctor ordered a sleep study to be completed.
(As a side note, I started using the hashtag #pokeandprod2017 for all of my doctors visits and tests that occurred last year...)
In May, I started with a consult appointment, where I filled out a quick survey that asked me questions about my current sleep environment. Did I wake up in the morning feeling tired, or feel tired throughout the day? No. Did I take naps during the day, or did I feel tired while taking long drives? No. Did I wake up multiple times throughout the night? Once or twice, but not more than that. There were a few other questions that I can't remember what they were, but the end result is that my score wasn't very high, so that didn't indicate a high probability of Sleep Apnea.
The sleep doctor then took a look inside my throat, and I realized what was coming next: as an adult, I've been told by dentists and doctors that I have a disproportionately large tongue, and also the largest tonsils they've seen. I'm not exaggerating that, either; I told the doctor that just before he was about to say it. I don't know why my tonsils weren't removed; they didn't cause any issues during my childhood. But I have also been told that my tongue is so large that over time, it has pushed against the roof of my mouth, so I have an abnormally high roof of my mouth. All of this is important to note for later...
So then I was told that I had a choice of taking an in-home sleep study, or I could have the study in their sleep lab; so naturally I chose in-home. I was able to pick the day I wanted to have that done, and then on that day, I would come in and pick up the monitor. They would give me instructions, then I would sleep that night, and drop off the monitor the next morning. I chose a weeknight in June.
The day of my study, I went in to pick up the monitor, and they gave me the instructions. The photo here is basically what the monitor looked like; a small plastic box strapped around my chest, with wires attached to my head and face and arm, and a tube that went under and just inside of my nose. The placement of the wires didn't have to be pinpoint accurate, and the instructions were printed on a piece of paper to follow. The monitor was connected wirelessly to the sleep lab so they could monitor the monitor and make sure data was recording properly.
And with that, I was off to complete my day and ready for a good night's sleep...
...or as good as you could imagine possible with all that stuff attached to me in various places. I probably ended up getting four hours of somewhat good sleep, between 2AM and 6AM; the rest of the time, I lied there awake in the dark, afraid to move too much. I normally sleep on my side, so I didn't want to dislodge any wires, and it was hard to sleep with this box resting on my chest. But, I did get some sleep, and the next morning, I dropped off the monitor.
Two days later, I got a call from the sleep doctor, who stated that I definitely had Sleep Apnea, just a notch below the Severe category. My AHI score was 29.5, and a score of 30.0 would have put me in the Severe category. So, he asked me to come in for an appointment. I went in a week later.
AHI = Apnea Hypopnea Index; an Apnea event is where my breathing has been blocked for more than ten seconds, and a Hypopnea event is where my breathing has been reduced but not blocked for more than ten seconds. The score is the number of times on average that I had an Apnea or Hypopnea event in an hour; so basically, I had stopped or had reduced breathing 29.5 times per hour on average that night, or more than 200 times total. The doctor gave me a graph that showed each event over the 8 hours I was being monitored, and showed which sleep position I was in. That part I found interesting, because as I wrote above, I sleep on my sides...or so I thought. In reality, I may fall asleep and wake up on my side, but I spent half of my time that night sleeping on my stomach. Some year ago, I realized that I was snoring from sleeping on my stomach, so I worked on changing my sleep position to sleep on my side, and it did make my snoring easier. Except that my sleep study showed that I spent a lot of the night sleeping on my stomach, and the rest of the time alternating one side or the other. I only spent five minutes actually sleeping on my back. The graph also showed that my Apneas and Hypopneas were all occurring on those times where I was sleeping on my stomach.
The sleep doctor then explained that his belief at what was causing my events were a combination of my weight and...my abnormally large tonsils...that at night, the muscles in people's throats relax, and that combined with my weight and tonsils, caused my throat to close much more often than a normal person. That interrupted breathing reduced the amount of oxygen in my system, which in turn does two things: cause my heart to work harder to pump blood through my system, which in turn raises blood pressure over time (ding ding ding!), and also causes the body to react by slightly waking me up, in order to un-relax the throat muscles, in order to restore normal breathing.
I'll pause here, like I did that day, as that was a major revelation to me. That, and it's a little disconcerting to think that a couple hundred times a night, I was actually not breathing. The sleep doctor said that fact in and of itself sounds worse than it really is, but yes, it does cause issues, and if untreated, would get worse and more dangerous, not only in terms of heart health and blood pressure, but also increases the chances of longer-lasting events.
Enter...a CPAP machine. What a CPAP machine does is to force a small stream of air into my
airways, which helps keep the throat open which then keeps breathing more normal, and relaxes the heart. Fortunately, I was given the option of choosing a mask that only goes under my nose (pictured by the cheesy-looking couple on the right), not a mask that covers my mouth. Fortunately, I normally sleep with a fan on for white noise, but I was told that the machine itself is very quiet (and in fact, it's quieter than a fan). I picked up my machine in late August, and I have to admit that it has made a difference in my sleep. For one, I don't think I realized how much I was tossing and turning at night, but I now definitely toss and turn much less. Second, it only took one night to get used to having a soft piece of rubber under my nose blowing air into my nose, but it is a very soft stream of air. I was told that I needed to make sure I slept with my mouth closed, and that was probably the hardest thing to get used to that first night, but that only took one night to get used to.
Finally, the CPAP machine tracks my AHI score every night, and I can download statistics to my smartphone wirelessly (and yes, I know I sound a little bit like a commercial here). I can track my AHI score, how long I have the machine on, how many times I pause it (to get up to go to the bathroom, for example), and if there is any air leakage. That first week, my AHI scores were between 4.0 and 5.0 - down from 29.5. Over time, my score has slowly dropped and is now pretty consistently between 1.0 and 2.0. It tracks the difference between Apneas and Hypopneas, and I have many nights now where I don't have a single Apnea. And I have gotten very used to the machine...almost instantly. Most nights, I can't tell that I have a tube resting under my nose. The entire concept is really kind of amazing to me.
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I don't have a deep insight to wrap this up; at least not one that is much different than the ones yesterday, except for this one point: there is a lot of "negative press" about CPAP machines; how hard they are to get used to, and how hard it is to sleep with. I remember thinking going into this that I was going to just go for broke and go into this positively, and try to ignore the many comments that are out there online and in conversations about CPAP machines. I felt that in this case, it was important for me to go into this with a much of a positive attitude as I could, and not create a negative self-fulfulling prophecy. I don't know how much that actually helped make the transition as easy as it was, but I'd like to pretend it did.
“The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.”
― W.C. Fields
