Sleep Deprivation

I'm sleep deprived.  It's funny, I hear people complaining about being tired.  They talk about getting six hours, or complain about being so tired they could collapse.

They have no idea.

One of the effects of my disability, is diaphragmatic weakness.  Spinal Muscular Atrophy affects my voluntary muscles, weakening them to practically infantile states.  Both of my two year old twins are significantly stronger than me.  My heart, lungs and digestive track are normal, involuntary muscles aren't affected.  I have some difficulty in the respiratory area because my diaphragm (a voluntary muscle) is affected.  It's harder to cough, or take those shallow breaths most of you take for granted.

I've always known I could get pneumonia and die simply because I couldn't cough out the infectious bacteria.  But, I'm generally very healthy, and have only experienced pneumonia three times in my 34 years, the last time was nearly a decade ago.

Anyhow, this diaphragmatic weakness has another strange side effect that's just presented itself fairly recently.  When I'm drifting into REM sleep, I stop breathing, or breathe so lightly that I don't empty the carbon dioxide out of my lungs.  The result is that I wake up slightly during REM sleep, up to 30-40 times per hour.

I seldom wake up completely, when I do I'm gasping for breath, but I drift in and out of REM.

Three effects are common.  First, pounding headaches similar to migraines, first thing in the morning.  These feel like I was hit in the eye with a brick during the night.  I get out of bed and take a few deep breaths, and the headache goes away within twenty or thirty minutes.

The second effect is extreme fatigue.  People claiming they could fall asleep at any moment don't comprehend what it's like.  I literally can fall asleep sitting up with my eyes half open in a few seconds.  My daytime sleep isn't restful.  In a day like today, I could fall asleep for a few seconds to a minute more than 100 times throughout the day.  I can't get myself out of my wheelchair, so I can't even purposely nap.

Finally, there is the nightmares.  My dreams are extremely vivid, because I'm waking up during REM sleep, when we dream.  For the occasional sex dream, I kind of enjoy the vividness, but those are few and far between.  I dream about whatever had my attention that day.

Last Sunday, I watched the Hungarian Grand Prix.  It was a good race, but relatively uneventful.  Michael Schumacher won again.  That night I had a dream that Robbie Gordon (an open-wheel racer gone NASCAR) was racing Formula 1.  He pulled into the pits and his car ignited a fuel fire.  For some reason the race had already ended, so fire crews weren't available.  I'm watching television and seeing him and his crew being burned alive in the worst fuel fire imaginable.  To any true Formula 1 fan, you can understand the utter fear I felt.

The very next night, I dreamed I was at a Champ Car race, and personally witnessed a course worker being hit by a car.  It ran over his right foot, and completely severed it.  I'm watching in horror at a scene too graphically violent for any R-rated movie.  The image of the foot being torn away is still vivid in my mind.

Imagine seeing something horrible on television or in person, and not being able to get the images out.  I was watching the World Trade Center on television as it collapsed and I cried, and that memory is permanent.

Now, imagine equally vivid images, simply drifting into your nightly sleep. 

That's why it's 1:36 a.m. now, and I'm writing.

Sleep Deprivation -- SunFyre -- August 21, 2004

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