The right choice

By now, it is August 2012. Sometimes, you go looking for answers all over hell and back, only to find they were right there in front of you the whole time. Such it was with me. I had assumed there were no local options, based on previous experiences and that was foolish of me. A simple web search showed there were a couple candidates who might be able to help me.

The first was a combined dentistry/oral surgery practice. I made the appointment and went there, only to wait for over an hour and a half only to be told that despite what their website said, they really couldn't help me. They offered me a referral to UNC hospital, which I never accepted--I wasn't interested in being bounced back and forth between offices again. It was a waste of time and money, that one.

The second candidate however... was a well-reviewed maxillofacial surgeon in Durham named Dr. Jeffrey Jelic, who ran a Functional and Aesthetic Facial Surgery center.

Sometimes, you just walk into a place and it clicks. Sometimes, you meet someone and they click--you know he or she is the one. Such it was here. After the first appointment, I was sold on the guy. He, too, recommended jaw advancement, but was much nicer and less pushy about it. He didn't specialize in sleep apnea but he'd done before, and done plenty of similar procedures for other forms of jaw issues.

The choice...

So walking out of there, what it came down to was this, for me:

Do I maim my tongue and throat (with the tongue reduction and lingual tonsillectomy) or maim my jaw? Do I go with the 50-60% chance of success that has a couple weeks recovery time, or an 85-90% chance that has 2-3 months recovery time? Do I go with the ENT in Charlotte, or the maxillofacial surgeon here in town I liked, which would also allow me to not have to make expensive arrangements to spend a week in another city while recuperating from surgery?

And the decision...

Put it that way... there's really no contest, is there? You know what? I'll take the sure thing. Okay, the surer one. I just want to sleep again, and I don't care what it takes. In the end... I refuse to live like this, completely dependent on a machine for sleep, tethered to it for a third of my life and still unable to get a full night's rest. It's not just that either--I can't nap, I can't sleep in, all three of my masks irritate me in one form or another, and needless to say... it's really a drag on my personal life, which is pretty much nonexistent at this point.

Your body and mind adjust to lack of sleep... to a point. But long-term sleep deprivation affects you in subtle but insidious ways. I'm constantly tired. I'm moody and forgetful. My motivation level is low. I get home from work and I don't want to do much except eat some dinner and play video games. I walk around in a fog that I'm barely aware is there any more because I don't know anything else.

Once in a while, I can take a drug like a muscle relaxant or Ambien to help me get more sleep, but there are costs to that. Essentially, I trade one good night's sleep for several bad ones (due to rebound insomnia), and by the end of the night, the water in my CPAP has gone bad. Yes, I clean my CPAP's basin, mask and hoses, but that only goes so far.

No more. I will be free of that machine if it's the last thing I do.