Sleeping? Not Much.

Yesterday had to have been one of the more emotional days of my life in the last few months than I have had.

JH already spelled it out, but basically his Sleep Apnea is very bad, but it's treatable. However, it means surgery to remove his tonsils, and that already sounds scary enough. As part of their standard procedure of making sure to inform the patient about all aspects of the surgery, they mentioned that it could get difficult and that he could die on the table. Now that's really something you don't want to hear.

So I get part of this via text yesterday, since we basically do not call one another at work. Then after a few responses from me, I heard nothing. Our plans that evening were to go to a Black Rose educational meeting, and I never heard from him by the time I had metroed up to Greenbelt, so I called and left a voicemail, and you could hear that I was annoyed because quite frankly, I don't like being kept in the dark or hanging, because if plans needed to be changed and I was to go somewhere else to meet JH, I needed to know before I walked through the turnstile.

Eventually I got through to him and then I finally get the whole story, and yes, it's scary what I hear, to the point that JH breaks down over the phone. It's not a phone call I expected to take, but that's just how it goes. We agree to meet at my place and then go from there, but Black Rose is definitely out that night.

I call my parents since they're all familiar with how it goes down in the medical world and get the facts on how these procedures tend to work. Basically yes, there are risks to having surgery like that, but the benefits outweigh the risks, especially with how bad the apnea is getting. It's scary to hear all of this, JH is in shock from the news, so of course he's scared. However, his quality of life will improve greatly once the surgery is done, yes he'll be sore for a few days, but any surgery will leave you that way.

JH arrives, I get off the phone, and we talk, we go to dinner, we head to his place and just try to relax. At this point JH is looking to stay at his parents house most of the time for the next few months because his roommate is often not home, and he would rather be somewhere where if he has a choking attack during the night right now or while he's healing up, there's someone nearby who can help him. I don't blame him in a case like this.

Am I a bit scared? You betcha, but going forward from this, I would want to see him get better because I have heard him in his sleep, it's clear there's a problem, and he has gone through enough nights of not getting enough sleep due to this. Also, there's people who have done surgeries like this over and over again, and they will always be prepared for the worst to happen, even if the worst does not come to pass.

Tomorrow he has an appt with a surgeon at 3:30 for an initial consultation. He'll be more informed on what the surgery will involve, and some of this information will probably be rehashed, but some will be new, but I hope it will put JH's mind at ease.