Technology Consulting Services

I have been thinking about this post for a while now.  People are fascinated by my story when I have told them about my experience.  In Sunday's Cincinnati Enquirer there was an article entitled “Sleep, killing you slowly”.   So today we will take a break from IT Consulting and Technology Consulting services.  I found a copy of the article with a different title on the MSNBC web site and you can view that by clicking here.

Back in March I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea.  To give you an idea of how severe my case was, anything over 30 incidents an hour is considered severe.  At one point during the night of my sleep study, I was at 50 incidents an hour and my blood oxygen level would get down to 80%.  (An incident is where I would stop breathing and normal blood oxygen level is over 95%.)

The interesting thing is that I did not have some of the classic symptoms and just because you do have a few symptoms does not mean that you have sleep apnea.  For example, I snore, at least according to my wife, and that is a common symptom.  The thing that caused me to go for the sleep study after visiting several doctors for several other symptoms was my blood pressure was always higher in the morning than in the evening, which is the opposite of what it should be.

Some of my other symptoms that I now know were associated with sleep apnea, but at the time just thought they were a associated with getting older were:  Waking up in the morning and still feeling tired; having a headache in the morning; having my short-term memory deteriorate and getting up two to three times a night to go to the bathroom.  The last symptom I thought was particularly interesting.  Apparently, the body makes more urine when you have sleep apnea and forces you to get up so you can get more oxygen.  (Since I have been on the CPAP, I rarely get up at night.) 

Being the owner of an Information Technology Consulting Firm, I get quite a few emails everyday.  I used to be exhausted after getting though the email and considered that the accomplishment for that day.   Not any more!   As the article that I referenced above says sleep apnea can be fatal and if you don’t have your health, you are in trouble. 

In the last few weeks, I have learned that a couple of IT consultants that had worked for STAR BASE, Inc. in the past have passed away.  Our condolences and prayers go out to their families.  Both of these men were in their early 50’s and taken from this earth way too soon.  Fortunately both of them knew what really mattered and are now in a better place.