*GASP!*

So here is the story of my sleep apnea.

I did my sleep study, the guy who monitored me said I'd need a CPAP for sure.
I went to a respiratory equipment provider and got my CPAP, and they said I had a really severe case of sleep apnea. one of them said it was the worst case she'd ever seen. I'm thinking - oh great, I'm gonna be famous for how little I breathe...
I take the thing home - it looks like a "scentstories", by the way - and the first night, I sleep like a baby. Scratch that. I have babies, I know how they sleep - for 3 hours and they wake up crying. I slept great. Probably the best sleep I've ever had. Although I apparently kept yanking the headgear off because I remember waking up 4 or 5 times to put it back on. The experience of wearing this thing is a bit odd. You know those air hoses at the gas station? Imagine if those had a soft rubber tip, and you stuck it in your nose, and were expected to sleep. You get used to it, though.
So, there is this thing called the apnea/hypopnea index. It's how many times per hour you have an apnea or hypopnea event. An apnea is when you stop breathing altogether for at least 10 seconds, and hypopnea is when your airway is partially obstructed, causing your airflow to drop by at least half. At 5 you are considered to have sleep apnea. at 15 most insurance covers getting a CPAP. at 50 it's considered severe. I scored 129. in 3 hours of sleep, I had over 400 hypopnea events, and I forget how many apnea events. I was neurologically aroused by those events over 200 times in those 3 hours. Let me say that again:
I woke up over 200 times in 3 hours.
At one point my oxygen saturation dropped to 67%.
So the guy woke me up and strapped me into a CPAP, and I had like 14 hypopnea events in the next 3 hours, and my oxygen never got below 90%, and I woke up like 12 times, and 10 of those were in the first 20 minutes of sleep. Get this - My apnea/hypopnea index went down to 6. This means that even on a CPAP at apparently a really high pressure, I've still got minor sleep apnea.
A word on the air pressure: My machine goes from 12 to 20, as far as pressure. Apparently, the numbers mean how many centimeters of water that pressure will displace. Mine's set at 17. Well, now it's set at 12, and I have to take it in to get it set up a little at a time because starting that high would apparently suck for me.
So, every night for the foreseeable future I'm going to have to strap on this weird thing that looks like SCUBA gear, and sleep while it blows high-pressure air in my nose and down my throat. But it's worth it. Sleep is actually restful now. Think about this: I essentially got no rest at all when I slept. I was nearly always either gasping for air or not breathing at all. My oxygen levels were always low, my blood pressure was always elevated, I was at risk for stroke and all kinds of other nasty things. I could sleep for 16 hours and not feel at all rested. I woke up almost every day with a headache. I NEVER entered deep sleep. Now I sleep for 7 hours and feel refreshed and renewed. I no longer wake up and sit in a daze for 2 hours, feeling groggy and wishing I could have gotten more sleep. I actually could have died in my sleep!
I think it's worth it.