Sleep Tight
- Robert Adams
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
DURING MY THREE-WEEK STAY in two hospitals this winter, I was greeted by several 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 ill-timed, but the fact was, I wasn’t running this show.
Frankly, my main concern during my hospital stay was surviving the planned operation. A heart surgical team would be replacing my mitral 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.
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 offers a glimpse into the societal conundrum that sleep plays in our nightly lives.
In the many 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 in full effect.
I often remarked that if this pattern worked for Ben Franklin, it worked for me.
So, there you have it.