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Kevin has always had sleep issues. For as long as I’ve known the man, he has never slept very well. He’s been a walking zombie for the past 23 years.

So over the years, we’ve worked on eliminating external triggers – background noise, no background noise, running fans, installing an air conditioner, covering every last pinpoint of light up with duct tape. (true story).

Kevin has tried alternating his diet – only drinking coffee in the morning, only having a splash of coffee in the afternoon, eating cereal right before bed, not eating right before bed, eating peanut butter sandwiches before bed, drinking a glass of water, (which makes him get up in the middle of the night to pee), not drinking a glass of water, (which makes him wake up with a headache and parched), and I can’t even tell you the combination of herbs and vitamins he first takes, then doesn’t take, to see if that has any impact on his sleep.

It’s become a running joke between us: “I think I’ve figured out why I’m not sleeping!” he’ll say with such hope and enthusiasm it’s almost painful to watch because I know it’ll inevitably fail, (which is does), and he’ll be right back to square one.

I had a few theories, but he wouldn’t listen to me – he wanted to exhaust every other possibility on his own first before he would reach the point where he was ready to accept help.

Finally, FINALLY, after exhausting every avenue, after trying everything short of standing on his head and leaning ever so slightly to the left, the man had had enough and he went to a sleep clinic. He did the whole spending the night thing, and when the results came back, I couldn’t help but preen a little.

I had been right. I guessed he had sleep apnea and he does. I would listen to him breathe at night and there were times he would simply stop breathing. Sometimes for so long that I would raise up on one elbow to watch him and be ready to spring into action if he didn’t resume breathing. (Though I have no idea what I would have done – I don’t have any medical training to speak of and aside from dealing with premature apnea with Dude and gently shaking him back to earth, I wouldn’t know what else to do).

Finding out that he had sleep apnea was a turning point. He now wears a mask at night and whenever he stops breathing, the machine will inject massive pockets of air into his lungs which makes up for the lack of oxygen his body needs whenever he stops breathing on his own. It’s also wiped out his snoring problem.

Whenever we went on vacation or went camping, and had to all share the same sleeping space with each other, I had to make sure to bring earplugs with me because the boys and I couldn’t sleep over his snoring. The volume was bad enough, but what really drove us crazy was the consistency, or lack of consistency, I should say. Sometimes he would snore softly, sometimes loudly. Sometimes he would abruptly snort. And it ALWAYS happened whenever we were on the verge of falling asleep so that when he let a snore loose, it was loud enough and startling enough to make us jerk back awake.

It was a nightmare. Seriously.

But now that he wears that mask at night, he doesn’t snore anymore. It eliminated that problem.

Unfortunately, it didn’t eliminate his sleeping problems.

He still wakes up at 3:00, on the dot, to either go to the bathroom, to grab something to drink, sometimes to eat something because he’s RAVENOUS, or he’s simply wide awake.