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Thursday, February 20, 2014

Falling Asleep at the Wheel? You Might Want to Have Your Heart Checked

Ever since 1996, DH has had trouble staying awake while he's driving.  My daughter and I have spent many a road trip scratching Daddy's back, talking to him "until we're blue in the face", and sprinkling water on his neck to keep him awake while he's driving.

Of course, we would switch off with him, but, he being the primary driver of the family would start to shake his head within an hour of the drive to wake himself up.

Well, that problem no longer exists.  Yesterday was the first time we have taken a long road trip since his heart surgeries, and he was able to drive the whole way without getting sleepy.

Now, I'm not saying that just because a person gets sleepy behind the wheel, he has heart disease.  I get sleepy behind the wheel too, but I rarely get more than four hours of sleep being a mom of seven kids.

He gets a full night of sleep, and he's still sleepy.  If I have my full night's sleep I can drive for a couple hours before I get sleepy.

But, this sleepiness that he did have before his stents were placed was only minutes into the drive and in the middle of the day, not hours into the drive and in the evening hours.  It was an unusual problem compared to the sleepiness of most people.

Yesterday, he mentioned how happy he was that he no longer feels it.  And he never complained about it, during the first five hours of our trip yesterday.

After five hours of driving, my son finally gave him a spell, but 30 minutes later, after a brief nap, he was offering to drive again.

We see a lot more road trips in our future!

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