Day 3

I cannot remain quiet about this. I have to tell the world. This may be the most significantly transformative thing I have ever done.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning, got out of bed, stood upright and WALKED to the bathroom. Now, this is significant because A) I stood straight up instead of being hunched over in pain, B) I WALKED, not stumbled nor shuffled; and C) I had not struggled out of bed 3 or 4 times during the night to pee like a racehorse for the first time in... Well, possibly a decade or more. I slept the untroubled sleep of a mature, healthy woman. I awoke feeling refreshed, alert, and in no pain. And I woke up next to the man I love, and after a quick detour to pee, I felt alive, alert, and GOOD enough to make love with the man I love. At 6:30AM. I shit you not.

It took me a while longer to realize the full extent of my well-being (I was, after all, a wee bit distracted). I was standing in the kitchen doing my dishes when I realized there was no tension in my chest, no tightness, no feeling of trauma. I could take a full breath without pain. I could extend my arms, arch my spine, tilt my head up to the sky. I began to take an inventory of all the other pains and issues that had been plaguing me - the chronic inflammation in my hips, the constant full-body ache, the feeling that every single tendon was pissed off. Gone. I looked down at my right ankle. The one I broke in March that was still swollen - oops, swelling gone. I had a full range of motion with it - for the first time since before I broke it.

It's been THREE NIGHTS. THREE NIGHTS of uninterrupted, healing, restful, restorative sleep, and my body is beginning to literally transform. All the suffering, all the pain, all the exhaustion, all the little nagging discomforts, as well as the big chronic ones, are melting away. I am not taking medication, I am simply BREATHING and getting REM sleep. This is IMPORTANT.

I cannot believe that a mere week ago, I would wake up at 11:30 or midnight, after an hour or so of sleep, look at the clock and despair; "How am I going to make it through this night?" And I had NO idea what was happening to me. No clue. No knowledge of the oxygen deprivation. No idea that I wasn't getting REM sleep. But I would wake up in the wee hours feeling like I had single-handedly taken on the Roman Legion. The constant fight for breath was wearing me down before I even had a chance to wake up and start the day.

IF you feel like I have described, IF you snore, if heart disease, stroke, diabetes or any other life-threatening issues run in your family, don't fuck around. Don't wait, and above all don't be ashamed. I snore like a friggin' pirate, but that doesn't mean I am somehow a bad person, deficient, flawed... It just means my airways are too small and they collapse at night. Do yourself the biggest favor of your life and take some action. Do something about this. Sleep the sleep you deserve, rest and be healed.

Blessed be. Earthalujah.