[Blaster86]

So I've spent the past two weeks or so in and out of specialists and doctors for all sorts of fun stuff.

I've known that I've had sleep apnea in some form or another for about 10 years. Never really thought much about it. Pissed off partners from time to time, but it wasn't that bad. Unfortunately covid saw some weight gain and it got remarkably worse. I didn't think much of it at first since I as single so no one cared. Sleep apnea ain't nothin other than the snoring and being tired sometimes.

But it just got worse and worse, to the point that I was waking up more tired than I was going to sleep. Whatever, restrictions will end and I'll get back to playing hockey and going to the gym regularly and it'll go away. That's an oops.

About a month ago I had a slowly encroaching headache that eventually caused something called hemianopsia. Now I had no idea that it had a name until recently, but it's when you can still see but for some reason can only see half of your field of view. I didn't think much of any of it, chalking it up to being tired. The hemianopsia was short lived but the headache lingered for three days which is when I ended up at the local emergency room. The initial suspect was a migraine. Not because this is caused by migraines, but because I suck at describing to doctors apparently. So I sit through a battery of tests and then I get an EKG done. Turns out my heart is in atrial fibrillation. Has been for some time. Didn't notice it kick in, but here we are. So now we spend a few weeks trying to figure out why this happened. And as we learned two weeks ago, it all comes back to the sleep apnea.

So the sleep apnea made me feel tired and caused my heart to go kooky which put it into a-fib. So two weeks ago I am informed by the cardiologist I am seeing and the neurologist I am seeing that they have had a quick chat and with the confirmed sleep apnea diagnoses they both agree that I had something called a TIA or a Transient Ischemic Attack or as they called it a mini-stroke. So at all of 34 years old I have been told that I've had a small stroke and something that usually only happens in the elderly.

So the sleep apnea made me feel tired, caused my heart to go kooky which put it into a-fib, and made me have a small stroke at the age of 34. I am now on blood thinners, likely for the rest of my life. I feel tired walking up a flight of stairs and the cardioversion attempting to shock my heart back to normal didn't work, but did leave my upper right side of my body feeling like someone had spent two hours smacking me with a meat tenderizer.

The moral of the story is that sleep apnea is just the worst. If you have it or think you have it, look into it. Get a cpap machine. Don't #### around, because apparently sleep apnea is not just nothing.

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.