Maybe I shouldn't put this down anywhere.  Maybe I shouldn't publish it.  But it seems to me as if sharing stories is valuable.  Maybe it will help somebody to read it.  Maybe writing it will help me.  I'm not about to do anything rash, don't worry.  But I want you to understand how I feel.

            A few months ago, I finally went in for the sleep study my doctor had first suggested a couple of years ago.  With all the excellent things I inherited from my Daddy, I also got his insomnia.  And, as he told me his progressed, mine has gotten worse with age, along with the claustrophobia which, apparently, also came down with his genes.  My insomnia seemed to fit the descriptions I had heard of sleep apnea.  The description says sleep apnea raises blood pressure, and increases the likelihood of depression, obesity, and diabetes.  Check to all three.

            My first sleep study was a nightmare.  Wired like a 50-year-old hifi set, I was supposed to sleep.  And sleep came with much more difficulty than normal.  They were supposed to try my out with a CPAP mask after I had slept four hours.  I never got the four hours in.  But they decided to try the mask anyway.  Instant panic.  With that tube on my nose, I felt I couldn't exhale.  It was all I could do not to scream and start clawing my way out of all that paraphernalia.  The technician got me out of that mask, and tried one which covered my nose and mouth.  That was better, somewhat.  Finally she removed the mask and replaced the sensor that had been under my nose.  She told me she could tell by the way my jaw was working that I was talking to myself, trying to come down from my freak-out.  She comforted me with the story of a Gulf War vet who, at that point, panicked, pulled all the wires off himself, put his clothes on and just went home.  But the good news is we have a definite diagnosis.  It is sleep apnea.  I do stop breathing, many times during the night.

            They scheduled another, this time with a sleep aid.  It went much better.  But still they did not send me home with the CPAP apparatus.  They said I am not tolerating the mask.  So, the sleep lab called in a few days and told me to consult an ENT for possible surgery.  I did.  He said my throat is indeed closing up when I sleep, that he will take my tonsils and do some other work in there, that I will be out of work for two weeks, and that I will hate his guts every second of those two weeks, I will be in such pain.  In the meantime, 10 mg of Ambien doesn't keep me asleep all night, but close enough.  I don’t like taking them, but right now I’m sleeping better than I have since Daddy’s insomnia caught up with me when I was about 30.

            During that first sleep study, I thought of a precious, beautiful lady I knew who was dying of ALS, who, they say, had not been able to speak, to feed herself, or even to move for months.  I wondered how she could stand it for days and weeks and months, when a CPAP mask on my face for a couple of hours made me think I was going to lose my mind.  How do my fellow human beings face what must seem like eternity of such awful things, with no hope of improvement short of death?  How do people not take their own lives when the future is a sure course of degeneration?  I felt myself a weakling and a coward.  I liked to think of myself as a man of some courage, but I realized then that I would say anything, betray anyone, do anything to stop the experience I had just endured. 

            A diabetic, hypertensive, overweight insomniac, these days I am more aware of my mortality than ever before.  It never occurred to me 58 could feel so old.  Emily, my daughter, made me promise to live to be 110.  If I can’t get past this, I don’t know how I will endure another half century.  And these thoughts are never far from the surface of my mind.  I am scared.  I’m pretty good at not revealing such things.  But I am scared.

            Jesus saved me about 40 years ago.  I doubt there are very many people who know the Bible better than I do, who understand theology and doctrine as well, and who genuinely love God more.  He is my Creator, my Savior, my Father.  To this day, I have such rich, rich experiences of his presence in prayer and worship.  To this day, he reveals himself to me in intimate, beautiful ways.  I believe myself a Christian.  I believe he will receive me to himself eternally when the time comes.

            But, as Jesus did not look forward to Golgotha, I dread the discomfort of physical degeneration and death.  Like so many, being dead is not scary, but dying is.  The expense to my family, financially and in deeper, more devastating areas, is a thought my mind is afraid to touch.  Will I have to say goodbye to my beautiful wife and my precious daughter?  Must I?

            But, on the other hand, isn't this a trip everyone has to take, everyone who lives long enough?  Am I not walking in Will Thomas’ personal Gethsemane, as Jesus walked his, as so many of us must walk ours?  “Father, let this cup pass from me.”  Jesus, and many people much greater than I, have prayed that.  And God, with greater love than any parent who stood watching you while you cleaned your room, who wouldn't let you go play until you had done what you needed to do, so often refuses to grant that prayer.

            How much do you want to bet that, a year from today, this crisis will be over and I’ll be feeling better than I have in decades?  I probably will.  Now I laugh and joke and carry on as I always have.  But now also there is a dark undercurrent to my life, a fear, like I've never known.  It's hard.