In the past few years, I have written countless essays about my two dances with death. Once I became aware of my dances and their impact upon me, it radically changed my life. The traumatic brain injury dance was a fast dance while the metastatic prostate cancer was a slow dance. I greatly benefited from both dances and wouldn’t delete them from my life.

Having benefited from doing the dances, I settled down to a normal life. Well, normal is relative to me being more driven than I was prior to either dance. I am soon beginning the fund-raising drive for a half-million dollars for 1250 laptops and improved Internet reception in Taunggyi. My three granddaughters attend two schools near Inle Lake, Myanmar.

However, I have had another major medical problem. I was dead tired all the time. I could fall asleep in a matter of a couple of minutes while eating breakfast or lunch as I watched news of TV. When I wasn’t sitting, I was just walking around my world extremely exhausted. This issue of being tired all the time has been a problem for several years. Recently it has gotten worse. It became something that I needed to address. Off I went to see my family doctor who ran tests on me. I went to a handful of other specialists for additional tests. In the past year or so, I have had dozens of blood test, x-rays, CT scans, and even an echocardiogram.

After endless tests, can you imagine what all the tests indicated? Nothing. According to all the tests, I was healthy. Well, I might have been healthy, but I was dead tired all the time. As luck would have it, I had gone to my ENT about a breathing issue. While there, I complained about being tired. His response was to give me a script for prednisone, which would reduce the inflammation of my nasal cavity, which could have caused some of the sleepiness. While three weeks on prednisone cleared up the inflammation, it didn’t help being tired all the time. My ENT sent me to see Dr. Bozanich for possible sleep apnea.

To be honest, I thought that this would be a waste of time, since I had had two sleep studies a half dozen years ago. And besides, I didn’t want to have to wear a breathing mask while sleeping at night. After my first visitation, Dr. Bozanich set up a sleep study, which indicated that I did have sleep apnea.

In fact, on average, I’d stop breathing six times each hour. Additionally, I have a very serious case of restless leg syndrome. He put me on some medication to curb the restless leg problem, which exacerbated the sleep apnea issue.

Then, a couple of weeks later, I returned to the lab to have my second sleep study with a breathing mask. A nurse would watch me sleep on a computer monitor and increase the amount of oxygen to address the sleep apnea.

Due to the medication for my restless leg syndrome, it was reduced somewhat. In addition, Dr. Bozanich did some blood tests to check various levels of vitamins, minerals, sugar, and associated trace elements in my blood.

While all my levels were within the normal range, I did not have very much iron in my system. Therefore, I am taking ferrous sulfate to address the iron issue. That along with my breathing device has changed my life. I’m not dragging myself around and fighting to stay awake even at the beginning of the day.

I realized that both dances with death were actually blessings. Interestingly, this strange dance is also a blessing. Besides being rested and happy, I am reminded that my clock is ticking. That has a strange positive effect upon me.

If you have a sleep problem, I would recommend Dr. Bozanich.

" Dancing with death"

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The last lecture

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Connecting the Dots

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"We Are Family"

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08/24/18