Jericho: Burgled

It's been a mixed up couple of days.

Tuesday night I went in for my sleep test. For those of you who don't read this act of love regularly, I'm fat. Real fat. I've also had sleep apnea since about college. Non-diagnosed sleep apnea, but there it was still the same. No shock. I'm over weight, a white male and now I'm approaching middle age. There is also a family history. So, there was nothing unusual about the fact that I couldn't sleep on my back without waking up in the middle of the night after having not breathed for a while. Which grew into not getting much sleep because I kept waking up to breathe.

When my atrial fibrillation started up, it always seemed to go in the same pattern. I'd wake up out of a dream, I'd draw in a deep breath and then my heart would lose it's mind and start trying to Break Dance and do the Twist at the same time. One of the emergency room workers suggested that it might be being kicked off by my apnea.

Since I started in earnest three years ago to fight my weight, we've known I should get a sleep study. So, last Thursday I talked with the doctor and Tuesday night I spent my first overnight in the hospital ever. To cut a longer story short, they deemed that I was going up to 45 seconds at a time without breathing, that my oxygen levels were dropping to 75% and that my heart would try to lose its mind when my oxygen levels got low. In short, I needed to be on a CPAP machine.

We could see in the test results that my lowest oxygen levels and the times when I stopped breathing were during REM sleep. This completely groks with my experience. I'd always seem to wake out of a dream, take a huge breath and then try to fall back to sleep.

Wednesday morning they hooked me up with the CPAP device and sent me to work.

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Last night Steph and I came home from work. As we approached the apartment, Steph commented that she must of left the lights on when she left. You see, while I was off having my sleep study - Steph was home alone all night. She likes a lot more light than I do and sometimes forgets to turn them off in the morning. As we approached the door, Steph saw that the screen for the window near the door was not on the window but on the ground next to the window. This began to freak her out. With good reason.

There has been a recent rash of break ins in and around our apartment complex. We're off the main road, but not too far off and there are two large apartment complexes in that area - all prime for picking. Steph gingerly tried the door and it was unlocked. My wife might leave lights on, but locks are meant to be locked! She locks everything as many times as she can. This was not normal. She grabbed the CPAP and other stuff I was carrying and asked me to go in first.

I opened the door not knowing (but having a clue) what I would find. I went directly where the crooks would go - our office. Two new laptops were missing. Steph needed a computer for the classes she is taking. The first one we bought was too bulky so it became my game machine, it was only six months old. We bought her a new machine less than a month ago. Both of those were gone. My iMac was still still right where it should be. The Mac G4 was still on the desk. I guess they didn't like Apples.

We didn't realize it at the time, but they had unplugged and stolen a four year old Palm Pilot and cradle that they had to disconnect from the iMac. I paid $125 for it in January, but I had trouble getting it to work and the battery was dying. The $300 Palm we bought for Steph was sitting on a shelf five feet away and they missed it - funny.

They tore apart the bedroom. They seemed focused on Steph's bra drawer - but all they found were bras - which they left on the floor. They went through the drawers next to the bed - all they found were my big boobs porn tapes - don't know if they took any - but I need to replace those VHS tapes anyway. They found our fire box in the closet, they jimmied it open - breaking it permanently. All that was there were our papers - which they left. We think they were looking for jewelry or cash - Steph was wearing her jewelry and the only cash in the room was a plastic jug of change about half full - maybe $150 bucks - which they took.

They also managed to find our fairly new digital camera, our six year old digital camera and an old inexpensive film camera which they may have mistaken for digital. In all, they probably walked out with about $3500 bucks of stuff.

We called the cops. A lone officer showed up. She took our statement and gave us a case number. That's it. No big investigation, nothing. No prints taken. Probably not worth the effort - everyone knows to wear gloves and it's not like someone was killed.

We called the insurance. We made our claim and gave them the case number.

I'm at a point now that I think we were hit by professionals. They knew what they wanted. I don't think they spent much time in the house. Even the way they broke in - they didn't come through the window as we first thought - the window still had the "safety pin" inserted and I doubt a thief would have taken the time to reinsert it. Steph tells me she thinks the lock is harder to turn, so I think they may have broken in using a lock picking device, something like a snap gun or maybe something more modern.

Anyway, we cleaned up and we both called in sick to work. We wanted to get several things taken care of the next day - the biggest of which was working with the claims adjuster.

So, that's the bad news.

The good news is that I wore my CPAP and got at least eight hours of really great sleep. I felt really good this morning - better than I had in quite a while. Oxygen isn't for losers!