Sleep Tight

DURING MY THREE-WEEK STAY in two hospitals this winter, I was greeted by many attending physicians who visited my room to check on me.

One doctor even encouraged me to join a sleep apnea assessment. At first, I thought she had the wrong patient as I had a failing mitral valve with a few other glitches in the mix, but my name and birth date were confirmed, so she continued with her pitch. In business, we call this cross-selling. It just hit me that it was perhaps ill-timed, but the fact was, I wasn’t running this show and was pretty much a captive audience.

Frankly, my main concern during my hospital stay was surviving the planned operation. A heart surgical team would be replacing my valve and would further attend to other heart issues described to me in obscure acronyms that I was only briefly familiar with. The heart is a very complex organ. Let’s leave it at that.

I survived the four-hour procedure, and five weeks later, I am feeling quite chipper, but I am still perplexed by the issue of sleeping disorders that are appearing in the news and on social media quite regularly.

Just last week, an article in the WSJ Weekend Edition by Elizabeth Bernstein brought the topic into further perspective for me. “Sleep shame” seems to be on the rise. The following link, or a web search, offers a glimpse into the societal conundrum that sleep plays in our lives.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/relationships/sleep-shame-how-to-fix-e93dad35

In the female relationships that have made up my adult life, I found that each partner brought a different take on my sleep routine. Yes, none of them approved of my "early-to-bed, early-to-rise" pattern. Sleep shame was and is in full force.

I often remark that if this approach worked for Ben Franklin, it works for me.

So, there you have it. Let's leave it at that.