Spotlight on Stigma... Welcomed but Not Accepted

  Groundhog Day , the iconic comedy from 1993 starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, had some success at its release but has become a classic as fans watched it over and over. In fact, the term itself has become part of popular culture. In Cambridge Dictionary, the term “Groundhog Day” has come to mean “a situation in which events that have happened before happen again, in what seems to be exactly the same way.” According to Wikipedia, the film has been analyzed by various religious groups who see it as an allegory. It’s reported that screenwriter Danny Rubin based how the main character, Phil Connors, changed as he tried to cope with re-living the same day again and again using the Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. A Twelve-Step support group I'm a member of has made an annual event out of watching Groundhog Day together. When I first heard of this idea, I wondered why they chose this movie to be the center of one of their

So... I got a call from my sleep doctor the other day. It was a little bit of good news couched in bad news. First, some background... I have severe sleep apnea. I was first diagnosed with it by one doctor in the early 2000s... then again with another in about 2010.. and then again with still another in 2018.  Why did I go to three different doctors for the same diagnosis? Your first thought might be that I didn't believe the first two. But I knew I had it before it was confirmed through the first sleep test I experienced (which was a nightmare, by the way, as was all the others). Switching doctors had nothing to do with the diagnosis. It had everything to do with the treatment, or lack of useful treatment, to be specific. Nothing the doctors encouraged me to do worked for me, and not for lack of trying. The first doctor immediately prescribed a CPap. I tried so hard to use that CPap but had no success. It was more than not liking the way it felt... I literally felt suffocated.  So