Cheating On My Sleep Test
Desperate for a CPAP machine, I attempt to hack the snooze system
The waiting-list into the Duncan Sleep Clinic is over a hundred days and a hundred restless nights—and that’s for the consultation alone. So this week, when the sleep technician hands me my first HSAT (Home Sleep Apnea Test), it’s only the beginning of an arduous process to fix my snoring, gasping, and hardscrabble slumber.
The end game here is finally acquiring a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine. It would not only improve my quality of life, it would make me LOAZ (Less of a Zombie) during the day, and gift many snore-free nights to my FUSSS (Fed-Up Silent Sleeping Spouse).
The sleep technician highlights diagrams on a photocopied handout: how to attach the straps, where to tape the tubes, and when to press the button that records the data that decides if I’m eligible for a sleep machine.
Yes, eligible. I need a bonafide prescription for the $2000-plus apparatus. I know I am, without a doubt, a crackerjack snorer and night-gasper. While in treatment earlier this year, I was the cause of many complaints to staff—mostly from the guy one room over.
My apnea has either exacerbated with age, or the mainland overnight lab I attended six years ago (that diagnosed me borderline) was horseshit. This time, I want to pass with flying colours and deliver cataclysmal sleep results.
“What if I unexpectedly have, say…a really good sleep?” I ask the technician across the desk. “Will it ruin my chances of getting a machine?”
“Well…” she says, leaning in. “The more disruptive activity we see, the more chance you have. So all I can say is, don’t fight a bad sleep.”
I am determined to give them the worst sleep in world history.
Tonight, my partner adjusts the strap behind my back; a satisfying reversal of how I zip and fasten her lady-gear before our date nights. Tubes tickle and irritate my nostrils. My finger fits snuggly in a rubber clip. The whole getup is about as sexy as athlete’s foot, but I’m sleeping solo tonight, choosing the hide-a-bed downstairs (often the in-the-doghouse mattress, but these days, an exile for apnea).
It’s a new level of performance anxiety in bed, and I’m determined to hack the system to get that machine. My sleeping pill and melatonin bottles go unpopped. I watch Fox News clips to quicken my heart rate. I make sure the windows are closed and the room is as stuffy and as foul as a teenage sleepover. The soothing ASMR sounds and waterfall meditations that usually fill my earbuds are swapped for loud podcasts and the entire music catalogue of Yes.
My test gear measures sleep disruptions, breathing problems, blood oxygen levels, and other signifiers to detect acute apnea. I read that another symptom of sleep disorder is a ‘disinterest in sex’, so I focus on my 5th grade math teacher, Ms. Rempel, who had body odour I can only describe as ‘devastating’. However, by about the 1 a.m. mark, my fatigued brain morphs Ms. Rempel into a showstopping minx, so I turn my thoughts toward monster trucks and Danny Trejo.
I must drift off a few times, only to be wakened by the gear digging into my side. While alert, I double down and fake snore—oinking in ridiculous fits with my eyes wide open. I pinch my cheeks and flick my ears. I try laughing maniacally, then try sobbing inconsolably, but both sound the exact same. I eat a hefty bowl of leftover spaghetti, snorting and choking through every bite to get those numbers up.
By 5 a.m. when the cats start circling my half-eaten meatloaf, I decide that I’ve done all I can. Wrecked and frazzled, with winter tires for baggy eyes, I press stop on the device. The lights flash green to indicate the test is complete and all data is recorded. More importantly, nothing beeps to alarm the sleep principal that I cheated on my exam.
At sunrise, I drive down the disenchanting stretch of Trans Canada Highway that is Duncan’s Main Street. Arriving at the sleep clinic before opening, I place my HSAT kit in the secure dropbox, looking over my shoulder like I still might be pinched for fraud.
The next step is waiting for my results, which they tell me takes a swift 2-4 months here on the Island.
I return home, take a hot, languorous shower and crawl into our real-live-couple’s bed—now free during her work hours. I build the perfect pillow fort, turn up my rain sounds, and fall into the deepest, quietest, and most serene nine-hour sleep of my life. And the sleep clinic is none the wiser.
Hilarious!! The visual of you "geared up" is EVERYTHING!!