I am 99% sure my friend has Sleep Apnea. He is too. Problem is, he's not going to do anything about it. The reason: purely financial.

I have been spending the weekend with a dear childhood friend; I'll call him Bruce. Now, I'm an odd kind of guy in a lot of ways, not the least being that not many conversations go by when I don't mention something Sleep Apnea related. So the conversation of course turned to Sleep Apnea. I was taken aback when Bruce not only knew what Sleep Apnea was, but was convinced that he had it. He explained that his ex-girlfriend was a nurse, and had essentially diagnosed him when she observed him snoring and struggling to breathe during sleep. Also, Bruce himself reports that he wakes up dead tired, heart racing, often dripping with perspiration from twisting and turning all night. He feels exhausted as he trudges through his day. The kicker: he has an elevated fasting blood glucose level, otherwise known as "pre-diabetes."

I'm no doctor, but that sure sounds like Sleep Apnea to me. Bruce is self-employed, though, and to cut down on expenses he doesn't self-insure, so an overnight sleep study is out of the question. I'm brainstorming to figure out a path for Bruce to get well. It's a circumstance that's not unique to Bruce and that needs to be sorted out for the good of many, many people. I'll keep you posted on what develops.