Sleep apnea and the homicidal cat

I have sleep apnea. I snore loud and hard. Hard enough to wake me up almost 60 times an hour. We won’t mention Debra who has only tried to smoother me once or twice.

I attended a sleep study and the doctor decided that a cpap machine was the best way to help me with this problem. The cpap machine forces air through a flexible tube to a mask covering my nose. This steady stream of air forces my airway to stay open and keeps me from snoring. This has the added benefit (according to Debra) of making it almost impossible to talk. If I try to speak, while the cpap machine is running, the air comes in through my nose and exits out of my mouth. I can be understood, but it sounds like I am being hit in the stomach as I speak. I can not even describe the feeling. It is weird.

Yesterday Athena, our cat, must have decided that I did not give her enough attention before retiring for the evening. I woke with a gasping start. The cpap machine was no longer running. I looked down and Athena was sitting beside it looking up at me (the buttons on top of the cpap are easy to push).

I could almost read her face:

“You’re lucky I don’t have a horse head to put in the bed with you.”

I turned the machine back on and slept through the rest of the night.

Athena did not give me an offer I could not refuse the next morning, but I did give her a lot of attention.

Just in case.