Oh What A Night!


I've just spent a not-so pleasurable night on the sofa. No, yours truly hasn't fallen out with the wife, I decided to spend the night downstairs with Connor so that Lesley could have a night's unbroken sleep. As he sleeps in our bedroom and is always awake by 4.a.m. - this is no small sacrifice on my part!

I managed a total of five hours before Connor's 'sats' machine started to go crazy. This machine monitors Connor's oxygen saturation levels 24 hours a day. We need our blood to be full of oxygen for us to function properly. You and I would usually have a level of around 95%-100% oxygen at any point. Without the constant supply of extra oxygen that Connor has through his tracheostomy tube he hovers around 60%-70%, which would usually mean that he would pass out and stop breathing entirely within a few minutes without it.

Anyway - enough of this medical stuff. The sats machine alarm sounds pretty much like an alarm clock - and is as loud. Can you imagine having to get out of bed, and walk over to 'kill' your alarm buzzer every 10 minutes for three hours? Well, that's what I did in the early hours of this morning. In the end I had to switch the thing of and constantly keep a watch on him just to make sure that he looked OK.

I could look at this experience two ways - I could complain and feel sorry for myself, or I could try to do something positive. Guess what I chose? So inbetween watching Connor and dosing up on Coffee, I read a few chapters of a book that really interested me, and concentrated my thoughts on how I could use the new information I had just learned. I can now look back on that time I had in the early hours as a positive experience and not as something negative. I'm very tired - but so what - I can sleep tonight, can't I?

Remember that there is two sides to every coin. You alone have the power to decide which way it falls in your favor.