Update...

I'm composing my entire blog post today around an excerpt from a book I read this morning. Whilst the bulk of this post's wit will depend entirely upon Bill Bryson and his astute renderings of self-awareness, I include it as the impetus for my last post's follow-up.

Whenever anyone's ever asked me "so why are you getting surgery? what for? Sleeping? Snoring? Why, is it bad?" I always stuttered and groped around for the proper description, somewhat embarrassed and flustered for the accurate depiction of why I got surgery.

If anyone ever asks me from now on, I will now respond, word for word, with the following:

"I am not, I regret to say, a discreet and fetching sleeper. Most people when they nod off look as if they could do with a blanket; I look as if I could do with medical attention. I sleep as if injected with a powerful experimental muscle relaxant. My legs fall open in a grotesque come-hither manner; my knuckles brush the floor. Whatever is inside - tongue, uvula, moist bubbles of intestinal air - decides to leak out. From time to time, like one of those nodding-duck toys, my head tips forward to empty a quart of so of viscous drool onto my lap, then falls back again to begin loading again with a noise like a toilet cistern filling.

And I snore, hugely and helplessly, like a cartoon character, with rubbery flapping lips and prolonged steam-valve exhalations. For long periods I grow unnaturally still, in a way that inclines onlookers to exchange glances and lean forward in concern, then dramatically I stiffen and, after a tantalizing pause, begin to bounce and jostle in a series of whole-body spasms of the sort that bring to mind an electric chair when the switch is thrown. Then I shriek once or twice in a piercing and effeminate manner and wake up to find that all motion within five hundred feet has stopped and all children under eight are clutching their mothers' hems. It is a terrible burden to bear."

This, my friends, is what I dealt with pretty much since I was about, oh, twelve. I know this from vehement and vigorous agreements from close family members and friends (many of whom have shaken me awake in the middle of the night to ask if I was dead) and also from the awe-struck stares I get from fellow passengers on the Metro when I've woken up from my daily post-work-commute-nap. I know I can't be attractive; I always wake up with my mouth hanging as wide open as humanly possible, usually with drool, and my neck arched back in a manner like unto the velociraptor skeletons from Jurassic Park who fossilized in improbably and extremely uncomfortable looking positions. I can only imagine the volume of my snoring.

I knew that I most likely had sleep apnea, but it had to be scientifically proven, so I voluntarily subjected myself to the following sleep studies:

After which it was determined that I could either spend the rest of my life wearing a full-face Darth Vader mask that shoved so much air into my nose and mouth that my respiratory system involuntarily shut down, or get surgery to remove parts of the back of my throat and tongue to increase breathing. Or... snore for the rest of my life and continue to fall asleep while driving and in boring meetings.

I'll spare the photos of my mouth (trust me... it was gross) but suffice to say that while I still may sleep with my mouth wide open and vast quantities of drool, at least the snoring has stopped. Huzzah!