Long path to discovery.

It was about two years ago when my husband (who is a night owl and often comes to bed an hour or two after I am well into slumber) noticed I would quit breathing while I was sleeping. He had long since complained about my horrible snoring that was much like a fog horn. He would climb into bed and become frightened - no not because of my hairy legs!!!! - but I would completely stop breathing! Many times he would shake me, "Lori, Lori...are you alright? Wake up!" A few times he thought I had quite breathing for good. Most of time, when he shook me, I would wake some, gasp for breath, roll over and go back to sleep. I had to go in for a regular check up and was suffering from fatigue, like normal, and again mentioned to my physician that I was so tired all the time. We briefly talked about sleep apnea, but I had a few other medical issues that seemed more immedicate and basically we both forgot I had mentioned it. ( I was dealing with a horrible case of hives that I suffered from for several months and nearly drove me crazy, plus my thyroid levels were way high again). Time went by - I went on a protein diet, lost weight, my snoring got somewhat better and I felt better. But just like all the other times, I gained all the weight back again. The snoring got bad enough again that it bothered my husband. One day he just asked me what was wrong with me because I snore and quit breathing and gasp for breath all night long! Wow - I didn't even really know it. About this same time we were under tremendous stress with our business. It was just like I was giving out. I hurt all over, slept all the time, couldn't think, couldn't focus and just felt awful. I was begining to think I had fiber myalgia, chronic fatigue syndrom or I feared it could even by something worse. I was working part time in our local university as a lab tech in the student health center. I was covering for my supervisors vacation and happened to be there on a Tuesday. I hardly ever worked on a Tuesday. Tuesday's are typically the day used for staff education and this Tuesday a rep from the local sleep clinic was coming in and providing lunch. I hardly ever stay in the building over my lunch hour so I could run home and let my dog out, but I thought - hey, a free lunch! So I went and had my life changed that very day. I believe it was God's intervention that had me work on this odd day just so I could hear this sleep clinic rep and get some help. Everything she talked about was me to a "T" and when I went back to the lab after lunch I called my doctor's office and made an appointment to talk with him about sleep apnea. We talked about symptoms and the interrupted breathing my husband had noticed and he got me into the sleep clinic right away.