I recall during my childhood listening to every noise around me. I can remember lying on my mother’s chest, listening to her heartbeat while she was sleeping.
Over the years, I noticed that after working nights she would come home extremely tired and would snore heavily. I often would wake her up to tell her she was snoring or that she had even stopped breathing.
Being so young, I was terrified of losing my mother and I didn’t know how to help her. I was afraid of something happening to her and I wanted to protect her in any way possible, so I expressed my concerns.
Soon after we talked, I heard her snore in a deep sleep that caused her to awaken because she couldn’t catch her breath. I knew that I had to do something in order for her to solve this problem. At the time, I didn’t do any research on what was wrong. All I knew was that I didn’t want to lose my mother and I had to find answers to whatever this issue was.
She didn’t think it was a big deal, until I sat her down to explain how she sounded while sleeping and how frightening it was to hear it. This time, after we talked, my mother went to have a sleep study done overnight. I felt a little relief off of my shoulders.
Once her study was finished, she found out that she has sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is when you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breathing while you sleep. During the study, she stopped breathing over 100 times and she wasn’t getting the proper amount of oxygen to her brain. This explained more about why she wasn’t cognitively alert when she woke up and why she had headaches.
After finding the problems, there was an easy solution that would help her. She was given a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure therapy) machine that helps her breath at night. This device helps a person who has obstructive sleep apnea breathe more easily during sleep.
This machine has changed her life. I believe that it saved her life and added many more happy years onto it. After years of being tired and snoring, she is getting more rest than before. This machine has provided me with some security that my mother is going to sleep easier.
Sleep apnea is very serious and can cause other health problems like high blood pressure, irregular heartbeats, heart attack, stroke, obesity and diabetes. It can also increase the chance of having work-related or driving accidents because of the lack of oxygen flow during sleep.
After worrying about my mother for so many years, I have found some comfort in knowing that there was a solution. When I hug my mother, I still listen to her heartbeat and know that I can protect her and return the love that she’s given me my whole life.
Ciera Simril is a student at the University of Missouri – St. Louis and former St. Louis American intern.
