I was on my way to Peoria, Illinois where we will be planting a church over the summer when I wrote my blog last night from a hotel in Bloomington, Illinois (where I also intend to plant a church). I had forgotten my sleep apnea machine, which I need not because I have had a stroke, but because I do not want another, after all, I have sleep apnea….and mine is pretty severe, particularly post-stroke.

As a matter of fact, I do not have a C-PAP machine, I have what is called a Bi-PAP. A Bi-PAP machine looks almost identical to a C-PAP, but a Bi-PAP machine cuts down the pressure when you exhale, and is made for people like me who need the pressure of an F-16 to keep their airways open. But I have a real and evident handicap in all of this, in that I AM A GUY, and I was too stubborn to turn around and drive back and get it. In retrospect that was a mistake.

I was actually up most of the night, not because I couldn’t sleep, but because I was waking myself up constantly. I have a high prescription for air pressure, and without it I am apparently toast. I was not only miserable all night long, which was not the purpose of going out the night before today’s meetings (rest and being sharp was) I also woke up with a terrible sore throat from apparently gasping for air! My good friend Pastor Connie Thomson wrote me this morning on Facebook wanting to know, as Paul Harvey used to say, “The Rest of the Story,” which I replied that I had indeed survived the night……but there were times I wondered if that were indeed the best thing.

I am back home now, with Ben in my bed talking his brains out to me, and Amanda passed out from exhaustion on the other side. The big news is that my machine is next to me and ready to go. When I had my sleep studies they told me I had probably not entered real sleep in years. I can tell it has been a couple of days…..I will resolve that problem in just a second.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+