NIGHT VISITORS

     I am not a great sleeper. It usually takes a while to go to sleep. I wake up three to five times a night. It helps if I get up and stretch. The one thing I have going for me is that my hearing aides are out for the night so I can't blame noise for causing sleeplessness.

    So because of limited hearing some things get by my. How do I know? I find the evidence (tracks ) the next day. Deer pass through  my front yard regularly.

   There are  two small entrances (one to two meters wide ) to my back yard. Animals are fairly cautious when they go through narrow entrances.

   Well, a few weeks ago when I went out to my back yard I noticed deer tracks. Deer very seldom enter my back yard for the above reasons. But they do travel at night and with their color are very hard to see.

   But what I noticed most about these tracks is that they were right below my bedroom window. So they passed very close to me and I didn't know it. I wonder if the deer knew I was that close?

I WAS ADMITTED TO A MATERNITY WARD...TWICE!

       Now before you get too carried away, I did not have a baby!

        I was not admitted because my wife had a baby. 

       There was no monstrous mistake.

       It was not some grand practical joke.

       But I swear I was genuinely admitted to a maternity ward.

       It has to do with health authorities wanting to make a health buck go as far as possible. Their creative ideas put me in the maternity ward.

       A few years ago my family doc decided that I should have sleep tests. A  sleep test to determine if I had sleep apnea.

       The good old health system had a plan. Since sleep tests are done at night and apparently babies come in the daytime , why not use the maternity ward for sleep tests. You stay over night and leave in the morning.

      So there I was checking into the maternity ward at 8:00 PM. 
  
       I was expecting to find all kinds of new mothers inhabiting the ward. I wasn't sure I was going to like this.

      The maternity ward was like a ghost town. They had no patients except on the second night there was one couple there in the evening.

      So the sleep test people were wired up to the test apparatus and tucked into bed by 10:00 PM. Hoping people would sleep with wires attached from top to bottom  was completely irrational. but I did stay in bed for the eight hour test. 

      I can't say that I had a good sleep but it was very quiet.

The Ultimate Insult to a Snorer

     Now I admit that I am a fairly capable competent snorer. I can raise quite few decibels.


     Am I concerned about snoring? Well, no. About 99% of adults snore. We all do it. So not to worry. Snoring is like respiration circulation...it's automatic. 


    In 2007 my wife and I went on a trip with our daughter and we had arranged for one room. The first morning my daughter said, "I didn't sleep all night. One of you snores and the other one chokes." So the only thing you can say is sorry. She did get used to the noise after several days. On the other hand I had to get used to a schnauzer. Unfortunately my daughter was given a mat to sleep on rather than a cot. Shortly after turning out the lights I heard the dog quietly walking around the bed. Suddenly the dog jumped up on the bed. She stealthily made her way up the bed and then gently eased her way under the covers between my wife and I. What spoiled brat!

The spoiled schnauzer!

    We have a local writer who has a humor column in the Saturday paper. Today he was describing a similar situation as I had gone through. They went on a trip and parents and daughter shared the same room. Guess what? Dad snored and daughter objected. In this case daughter grabbed her cell phone and made a video of her dad snoring...not once but three times! Now that's a tremendous insult. You're not only harassed about your snoring but you are confronted with cold hard evidence.


     Now I'm lucky that my experience was before fancy cell phones were invented.

     It's almost enough to make a guy quite snoring but as I said before there is a certain amount of automation to snoring. So good luck!

How Can I stay Awake All Night?

       Now in my past I have done all nighters. I've worked a few nights, but you can usually sleep in the daytime. I've partied a few all nighters. These all nighters were done when I was much younger. In retirement I have volunteered to supervise in from the cold for the night shift. If you have something to do, staying up all night is not too much of a challenge.

        What's my worry now? An EEG test has been ordered where I am to be tested when I haven't slept for 24 hours. The test is at 9:00AM Monday. Now I know part of this will not be a problem. I will have things I can do to keep me going. I'm limited on the reading because I tend to get drowsy when I read. There's no coffee after midnight. I find coffee just makes me feel miserable and jittery. I might go for a walk some time after midnight. But after that it's going to have to be will power. Four AM to six Am will be a struggle. Breakfast might be eaten very early. To complicate matters I want to stay up tonight and watch the meteor shower.

       Oh well, I'll get through it somehow. Wish me luck.