Whenever my daughter wakes up from a nightmare, I reassure her the way most parents do: “Don’t worry, sweetie — it was just a bad dream.” Secretly, I’m always worried that she’ll know that I’m bluffing. Because in fact, those scary dreams are pretty much the only place where I’m totally powerless to help her. That’s why, for me, the prayer for God to “guard us while sleeping” so that “we may rest in peace” has always felt so urgent — but also hard to believe.
I’ve always had nightmares, but last year they were getting especially bad. In particular, I was regularly having the ones where I couldn’t breathe — and I would lurch up in bed, gasping for air. Sleep was torture, and I was always tired. Then over the summer, our family stayed with some friends on the Sunshine Coast — Toby, a comedian like me, and his wife Sarah, a nurse. While Toby and I were off doing a show, my wife confided in Sarah that I’d become much more emotionally fragile lately, both irritable and quick to tears. Later that night, Sarah passed by our room, heard the way I was sleeping, and put two and two together: I needed to be tested for sleep apnea.
Why this hadn’t occurred to me, I’ll never know. My brother had been diagnosed with sleep apnea (when we shared a room as kids, he used to sound like a flamenco show in a food processor). But at my wife & Nurse Sarah’s urging, I got the test. Turns out I hadn’t been dreaming I couldn’t breathe — I wasn’t breathing. As I waited for the appointment to pick up my breathing machine in late March, my wife decided to call and see if I could get an earlier spot, which I did. And it was on the second last day before the clinic closed for Covid-19 lockdown.
Turns out, God does guard us while sleeping — through the love of friends, family, and caretakers. Nice news to wake up to.
