Snoring: The Not-So-Silent Killer

Here’s today’s Public Service Announcement. If you are a snorer or know someone who is—read this:

I’ve been a snorer since I was a teenager. I remember evenings with my family gathered around the television. Every night, with a couple of snorts and head jerks I’d awaken to the snickers of Mom and Frank, the studio audience of “Good Times”  even chiming in. I’d sheepishly shuffle to my room, mumbling good night to them all. Later, on campouts and vacations, friends would titter over morning coffee about the live animal they heard in the woods or the parade of dumptrucks outside our hotel window. Occasionally, they held their breath in worry as I stopped breathing altogether, but laughed in relief as my snarks and gasps returned.

One night at the Broadway Theatre, about a dozen people were scattered in the seats to watch a movie. I sat alone on the aisle with my Birkenstocks propped on the seat in front of me. In one hand, I held a $50 Diet Coke, and in the other, nachos with petroleum cheese. Life was good. The lights dimmed. The previews started. Then everything went dark.

The next thing I remember was a young woman tapping my shoe. “Sir ... sir …,” she whispered. I flailed in my trademark routine of snorts and head jerks. “Your snoring is awfully loud.” I quickly wiped the drool from my chin, my embarrassment compounded by the fact that she from the front of the theater to tell me this news. I sat stunned, for about three minutes—holding my eyes open as wide as an Edvard Munch—then skulked out of the theater to my car.

I checked into a sleep clinic. Long story short, they speculated that I had sleep apnea, a lack of oxygen due to the collapsing of the air passage during sleep. It is best described as trying to suck a thick milkshake though a small straw. Eventually, the straw just collapses, and no matter how hard you try, nothing gets through. This is what happens with your air passage (for sometimes as long as a minute). After a while, your brain takes over and wakes you up in order to reopen your airway. Once awake, your body panics, trying to regain oxygen. You gasp and heave as though you have nearly drowned. As your lungs expand and contract, your heart and stomach do the same. This is when strokes and heart attacks happen—a lot. Yikes!

The night of my sleep test, the techs rigged me up with wires, tape, monitors and who knows what else. Somehow, I still managed to fall asleep.

When I awoke, it seemed very quiet all of a sudden—like when the hum of the refrigerator stops. I didn’t know what time it was, and lay there for awhile until a tech came in to unhook me. I asked her if I broke any equipment with my snoring. She peered over her glasses with a grin and said I was “pretty loud.”

A few days later I met with the clinic for the big news. The sleep doc scrolled through my polygraph, and explained all the blips, peaks, and valleys. My snoring eruptions were pretty clear—a steady parade of big, black blotches. Increasingly, as the test night went on, there were long straight lines showing where I wasn’t breathing at all (one span lasted 69 seconds). These lapses were followed by erratic, violent scribbles that showed when my body was flailing and gasping for breath. It looked like San Francisco, 1906. When all was said and done, they told me that I spent about three total hours that night with my oxygen level below normal. Hmm.

The number that scared me most was my number of times I wasn’t breathing at all. Five to 15 is considered a warning sign. 30 is considered severe and should be treated immediately. Me? 96. Ninety Six! I was one of the worst he’d seen—a walking (or sleeping) time bomb.

They got me a CPAP. It’s a machine that forces a steady flow of oxygen through your nose during sleep, keeping your airway open—Marcus Welby meets Darth Vader. I’ve used it for 11 years now and love it. 

You often hear people say they just want to die in their sleep. Apparently, I came close several times. It wasn’t pretty.