Not giving up

I had a pretty good day.  I went for my first major walk since being sick with Sara this morning at Discovery Lake.  Her son was with us in his stroller, so we only walked two miles but that was okay with me.  To round out the walk, I had a nice little coughing fit at the end.  Yeah, okay, it wasn't nice but it was a fit.  I was planning on walking more after we were done visiting while her son was playing at the park, but then I realized that perhaps it was okay to settle for what I did.  After being sick for four weeks, I need to transition back in.  That's progress for this black and white thinker.  I don't need to push myself, only to make things worse.

Later in the day, I decided to take a nap and thought it was good to try my new CPAP machine.  I got it right before I got sick but I couldn't use it while I was sick.  I have the nasal pillow, so it's got these two little parts that you have to stick in your nostrils for the air to come through.  Can you imagine what that would have been like when I was still stuffed up?  Eww.  I'm a tummy sleeper because when I lay on my back or my side, I wake up when I start to fall asleep.  Actually, what really is happening is that I stop breathing and my brain wakes me up.  It has been explained to me that the reason for that is because I have an air obstruction.  The CPAP is designed to help with that, so I should be able to sleep on my back and side.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda.  I couldn't fall asleep, no matter how hard I tried.  I think I gave it two hours.  When I would start to nod off, the same thing would happen with waking up because I couldn't breathe.  My dad, who also has the same type of CPAP, told me it took him months to get used to the machine.  I finally pulled it off and tried to sleep without it.  I had tossed and turned so much by that time that it was a lost cause.  I'm not going to try it again tonight just because I want to get some sleep.  I will do it again tomorrow, though.  I have to keep trying.  A big factor for getting on the CPAP, aside from the heart benefits, is that I need to be able to sleep on my back after the gastric bypass surgery.  I really doubt I'll be allowed to sleep on my tummy given that they will be doing the operation there and I will need to recover.  It does worry me a little but I have months to work on this.  I do have an appointment with a doctor from the sleep clinic to evaluate how I'm doing in a few weeks, so I'll definitely talk to him about what's going on.  He will be able to read the data from the machine.  They may even have me do an overnight study at the sleep clinic if necessary.  The thought of someone watching me sleep makes me not want to sleep, but I'll do whatever I need to do to get over this hurdle.  I'm committed to that.

I've been doing really good on my water challenge.  I posted about doing it on Facebook and I had three friends tell me that they are going to do it now, too.  I feel like I'm always in the bathroom, but that's the whole point.  When I compared the difference of how I was doing with drinking water before versus now, it's night and day for sure.  These changes are little baby steps, but I definitely see progress.

Water Challenge Day 13:  Drank 186 of 186 ounces