Mike Stewart Writes

For as a far back as I can recall, people have been poking fun at me for how I sleep.

Sure I roll around a bit.

I’ve been known to fall out of bed from time to time when I’m engaged in a real adventure with a hoard of zombies chasing me. Who hasn’t.

And drool…

Yeah, I’m pretty sure my pillowcases require changing more often than most people’s.

But the one thing that I’ve endured years of ribbing for…

I “saw wood.”

Yes, apparently the walls shake.

Dishes fall off shelves.

Richter scales give up.

In other words, I snore…

And according to family, friends, and even lovers… quite loudly.

Growing up it was sort of a joke.

“I’m not sharing a room with Mike.” my sister would cry whenever we went on family vacations.

“Well neither am I,” my father would laugh back, which was funny since he and I pretty much battled for the title of “Loudest Snorer” in our family.

Then when I started dating, and more importantly, sharing a bed with other people…

“Umm, yeah I like you and all… but WTH was that sound?! I thought you were dying!”

or

“Could you maybe roll over and face the other way at least?”

I leave this line here as an official apology to anyone I may have kept awake all those times, including my freshman year roommate who slept (or tried to) on the top bunk.

It wasn’t until I moved in with the woman who would soon become my wife that I finally relented and decided to do something about it.

She’s a light sleeper, you see. And, not the most patient person in the world, if I’m being completely honest…

So, she made it quite clear that I’d be spending all too many nights on the sofa if I couldn’t silence the beast that came out of my throat each night.

I might have lived with it, but our sofa wasn’t all that comfortable…

Around the same time, the same amazing woman mentioned above gave me a smartwatch for my birthday. I mostly use it to track how many steps I take each day, which is fun. But I noticed it had a sleep tracking application on it, so I gave it a try for a few nights.

What I discovered was…

I was dying.

Well, almost.

Well, I wasn’t breathing anyway. That’s pretty close to dying.

The watch told me that I stopped breathing several times each night. It let me know that my brain was being deprived of oxygen on a regular basis. Not fun anymore.

So now it was serious!

It wasn’t just about snoring anymore.

I’m kind of a big fan of breathing.

Huge fan, in fact.

I’d follow breathing on tour like Taylor Swift if I could.

So, as a fan of both inhaling (breathing’s debut album), as well as exhaling (air’s farewell tour), I made a decision.

I needed to take this funny little snoring habit seriously for once!

So, off to the sleep clinic I went!

Living in Korea, and not necessarily being fluent in the language, anytime a medical issue comes up, I tend to put off going to the doctor. I’m ashamed to say how many times I’ve walked around with a mysterious limp or a random blinding pain in my gut without getting it checked out…

This is partially because of language barrier fears, and I also think it’s just part of being an American. A lot of Americans my age avoid going to the hospital due to the outrageous medical costs. But in South Korea, we have national health insurance that takes a whole lot of the sting out of going in for a check-up or having an Xray taken. Still, the Yankee in me tends to tough it out whenever I catch a cold. Meanwhile my Korean friends dart off to the hospital for IV fluids whenever they’re feeling “a bit exhausted.”

So anyway, this was serious, so I bit the bullet and did a bit of searching.

I Googled “sleep clinic seoul” and found a few places. Then I compared websites and picked one that had the best looking English language version. As luck would have it, the place wasn’t far from where I was working. I could visit on my way to the office. Great!

One year ago (coincidentally exactly one year ago according to “Facebook memories”) I booked an appointment and headed over to the GNG Hospital Sleep Clinic to meet with a doctor. Hopefully I could get to the bottom of all this snoring, not to mention the whole “dying every night several times” thing.

Located in the Gangnam area of Seoul, GNG is a short walk from Bongeunsa Station, or for those more familiar with Seoul, the COEX neighborhood. The hospital actually does a lot of plastic surgery as well. I’m guessing the “nose-jobs” and eyelid tucks are what bring in the real money, while a handful of sleep-deprived zombies like myself are regulated to two floors, one for consulting and another for the sleep center.

I made my way up to the 4th floor and was met by a young man named Chris. We’d chatted by messenger beforehand when setting up the appointment, so I wasn’t all that nervous going in. He’s their English interpreter and does a great job at translating everything the doctors say. Even though I’m able to understand a fairly good percentage of what’s being said, it’s great to have it 100% clear.

That first day I was X-rayed and a camera was sent up my nose to look around. Then I made a reservation for my “sleep study.”

A few nights later I showed up for the study.

Chris wasn’t there but he’d left a note for me with the nurse. This was on a different floor, the 8th I think. This floor is slightly more dull and very quiet, for obvious reasons. Everyone on this floor seems to glide around on tip-toes and they all speak in hushed tones so as to not wake anyone.

I was ushered into a small room. There was a single-sized bed, a closet to hang clothes and a sink by the door. It looked like a very simple college dorm room. No frills and a bit dated.

A microphone hung from the ceiling directly above the bed and a CCTV camera was prominently attached above the door, pointing directly at the bed. Yes, it turned out I was going to be filming my first “bedroom scene.” Gulp!

After changing into a pair of slightly-too-small pajamas, I was instructed to take a shower down the hall and then return to the room. I did so (no shower details for you, sorry) and waited quite some time for another nurse to come fetch me.

In another cramped room I was told to sit in a swivel chair and then the long process of getting me “wired up” began.

First, a few marks were drawn on my head. Then the nurse slowly and quietly, not much for small-talk luckily, attached what seemed like dozens of colorful wires to my head and body. An especially long wire was also fished up inside each leg of the pajamas and connected somewhere on my inner thigh. Each cord was taped in place carefully with the opposite end individually plugged into some sort of alien device they needed to process all the information.

To me, it all looked like chaos, but there must have been some method to where each wire was attached. Finally, two tight belt-like straps were stretched and buckled across my chest and stomach.

As the nurse struggled to get the two ends of the belt to reach each other I began to think…

“Am I the largest person to ever come to this place?” I mean, the pajamas were cutting off the circulation in my legs, and the chest strap was nearly cracking ribs.

Was I a pioneer? Was I the most obese human specimen this nurse had ever dealt with? Sure, I’d gained quite a few pounds due to Covid, (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) but I know there are plenty of Koreans who are much larger than me.

Eventually I pushed these thoughts aside and decided to endure whatever discomforts I might have been feeling.

At last, I was fully wired and wrapped up in bands and belts and cords and such, and could return to my little room with the camera above the door. The nurse followed me in and plugged all those wires into a larger machine that must be used to send data to an office somewhere. The lights were then turned off and I was told to get some sleep.

I tried sleeping…

Now, I don’t usually sleep in PJs, so this would have been less than comfortable to begin with. But these were two sizes too small and then of course, the wires. Oh my, the wires. I was told to not move around and to sleep on my back. Not easy seeing as I’m more or a “running man” sleeper. You know, when you sleep half on your stomach with legs and arms in positions mimicking someone doing a 50-yard dash. That’s my go-to pose. Not this night though. I had to avoid pulling any of the wires out. Not easy.

Instead of the Running Man, I was Dracula. 

After what seemed like hours, I dozed off a bit. Then another nurse came in to reposition wires and check the equipment. Then the lights were turned off again and I was told to “sleep more.”

Again, I stared into the darkness, just making out the shape of the microphone on the ceiling, until I lost consciousness once more. Then the ‘click’ of the door and the nurse was there again, juggling cords and poking things. This little routine happened a few more times throughout the night. 

In what was supposed to be a “sleep study,” I barely got any sleep.

Rise and Shine

I had no idea what time it was when a new nurse opened the door and told me it was over. I could take a shower and go home. She removed the spider’s web of wires and straps from me (much more quickly than the initial installation) and I made my way back to the shower room. I felt terrible. I had barely slept. The air was too dry for me, as is usually the case in most hotels, so my eyes and throat stung.

After my shower (again, no details for you…) I got dressed and took my phone out of the closet. Oh yes, no phones allowed during the test, so mine had been turned off all night. I held down the little power button on the side until the Samsung logo popped up and dropped the phone into my pocket while it restarted. There were no staff members in sight, but she’d told me I was free to go so I tip-toed back to the elevator and made my escape. Once out on the street I pulled my phone out to see it was only 5:13am. I suppose they didn’t need me to sleep all night to get the information they needed.

The 2nd Visit

A week later I returned to GNG to hear the results of my test. Chris was once again there on the fourth floor and we went into one of the small offices together to hear from a doctor. The doctor showed me a kind of EKG-like report on his computer screen. It showed how many times I had stopped breathing and how often I’d snored. It also indicated how little deep sleep I’d actually had. And then the doctor showed me my film debut.

It was in black and white as they’d used night-vision, so I immediately had flashes of the horror movie Paranormal Activity. Luckily I didn’t start floating in the video, but it was still quite horrible. 

There I was, 20 pounds overweight, bursting at the seams of those PJs, covered in wires, lying on the bed spread eagle for all to see. My mouth hung open like an opera singer. But, I wasn’t singing. No, it was worse. Much worse.

All those jokes I heard from my family growing up about “sawing wood” or “making the walls shake” came flooding back to me as I heard and saw, for the first time, what they were talking about.

I expected a priest to come rushing into the room screaming “The Power of Christ Compels You!”

It was bad. The sounds coming out of my mouth were not just loud. They were tragic and terrifying at the same time.

Tragic, as it sounded like I was dying.

Terrifying, because I didn’t recognize the voice behind those guttural noises.

So, that’s what all the complaining was about…

I made a joke of course to lighten the mood, and to avoid them from dialing the Vatican.

The doctor then went on to explain that I had quite severe obstructive sleep apnea. This is what I had expected of course. Well, I didn’t know it was “severe”, but he made it clear that it was indeed, not a minor case. Some of the worst he’d seen in fact. Great!

Sleep apnea is a condition where either your airways can not stay open enough for you to breathe (obstructive sleep apnea) or your brain doesn’t send the right signals to control your breathing (central sleep apnea).

Around 936 million adults suffer from some form of sleep apnea, globally.

And, if not taken care of, it can do a lot more than make you grumpy in the morning…

So, I would be joining the countless masses who sleep with an elephant’s trunk attached to their face each night. The dreaded CPAP machine with its distinctive hose that hangs from the center of your face and pumps air into your lungs while you sleep would be coming home with me. CPAP stands for continuous positive airway pressure, and that’s exactly what it provides. It pushes air into your body, forcing open those lazy airways that apnea patients have.

I was given a few mask options to choose from and shown how to use the machine. I posted my situation on Facebook and was surprised to learn how many of my friends were already elephants themselves.

  “I’m on it. Get it!”

  “It’s a life changer!”

  “You’ll sleep so much better with it!”

So I wasn’t alone. In fact it turns out around 33 million Americans go to bed each night with a machine that helps them sleep. That’s 33 million people with elephant noses hanging from their faces in just one country!

Comfortable? Not so much. At least not at first.

Not so easy getting into the “running man” pose, but I figured it out. I eventually purchased a different mask online, too. The first one was too tight, leaving me with a severe case of “hat-head” all day, even with a morning shower. Now I wear a simple nose piece with a kind of insert that sits in my mouth like a retainer. That also took getting used to, but no straps!

Results?

• I don’t snore like I used to.
• I sleep through the night. 
• Turns out all that waking up to use the toilet wasn’t that important.
• But I’ve also noticed a bit more energy in the morning.
• I don’t hate getting out of bed.
• I usually feel like I actually slept enough.

Sure, I still require coffee before I can fully function, but there’s definitely an improvement in my mood and I’m not dozing off on the subway like I used to.

And most importantly, I’m still alive.

It’s been a full year since I joined the elephant club.

People were right. It is a life-changer.

Sure, it isn’t pretty.

I try and wait until my wife’s fallen asleep before I strap that thing on, but once it’s on, I’m out like a light. I only wake up once most nights to take a sip of water and then I’m out again until my morning alarm.

Regrets?

Looking back, I should have done something about my sleep issues many years earlier.

I waited so long and kept putting it off.

Imagine all the good nights of sleep I could have had.

Imagine all the suffering I could have saved victims of my “sawing wood.”

If you aren’t getting enough sleep… do something about it.

• Get in touch with a doctor.
• Contact a sleep clinic.
• Get the bottom of the problem.

I did, and can say I’m happy to be a part of the elephant club.

Oh, and if you happen to be in Korea and would like to get to the bottom of your sleeping issues, check out GNG Hospital Sleep Clinic today.

Say “hi” to Chris for me.