Dan Hajjar and Anne Marie Jarka-Hajjar before their sleep disorder tests.
MORRISTOWN, N.J., Feb. 13 — After canceling a planned romantic dinner, Dan Hajjar and Anne Marie Jarka-Hajjar, who have been married 17 years, spent Valentine’s eve in separate beds, tossing and turning amid a tangle of electrode wires and sensors stuck all over their bodies.
Aaron Houston for The New York Times
Cathy Durkin, left, and Kerry Kelley preparing the couple for their study.
In a last-ditch bid for bedtime bliss, the couple checked into the sleep disorder clinic of Morristown Memorial Hospital, hoping its medical staff would deliver a respite from nearly two decades of uninterrupted snoring.
Mr. Hajjar, 42, an executive at Aon Corporation, has long been plagued by sleep apnea, which can disrupt breathing hundreds of times a night. Then, starting 18 months ago, Ms. Jarka-Hajjar, 41, a college professor and theater producer, turned their bedroom in Convent Station, N.J., into a nighttime chorus.
“He would have 100 percent pushed this off until another time if he was doing it alone,” said Ms. Jarka-Hajjar, who blames sinus problems for her muffled snores. “So I’m hoping that by me being there and going through the same thing, it’s really going to help him, which will help me.”
As with so many newlyweds, snoring was a source of friction from the outset. For years, Ms. Jarka-Hajjar said, she dealt with it by taking a sleeping pill — or by taking her pillow to a couch in the den.
But a few months ago, Mr. Hajjar’s condition took a turn for the worse. “I wake up in a panic like someone is suffocating me,” he said. “You’re gasping for air and your adrenaline starts pumping, and it’s more and more difficult to get back to sleep.”
Mr. Hajjar, an executive vice president of human resources at Aon, the insurance brokerage, admitted that his stressful work schedule had tempted him to cancel the appointment at the sleep clinic, but fear for his health won out.
The couple arrived at the hospital at 7 p.m. on Tuesday and settled into the hotel-like wing where the sleep lab is housed (their 5-year-old son spent the night at a relative’s). A crew of sleep technicians scurried from room to room, monitoring the placement of the myriad cords and tubes. Two consoles allow sleep experts to watch sleepers from a video feed, listen to their snoring, and check on vital signs they keep track of, including eye movement, muscle tension, heart rate and oxygen level.
The lab, founded in 1990, was rated the No. 1 sleep center in the nation by Advance for Managers of Respiratory Care, a medical journal, in 2005. It treats more than 2,600 patients a year, including perhaps a dozen couples, tops. More than 12 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, a potentially dangerous disease that affects mostly men and overweight people and can increase the risk of stroke, heart attack and high blood pressure, according to the National Institutes of Health. In most cases, the sleeper’s throat muscles relax too much, obstructing the air passage and making breathing difficult.
Patients like Mr. Hajjar, who is physically fit, are often prescribed a continuous positive airway pressure machine, a masklike device that drives air into the collapsed passage. Mr. Hajjar has used such a machine sporadically since 2004, but he does not like it one bit. “It’s like someone is sticking an air hose up your nose,” he said. “My son, who is into Star Wars, said, ‘Dad, you sound like Darth Vader.’ ”
During his evening at the clinic, Mr. Hajjar wore the awkward contraption, which consists of a tube placed below the nostrils, a strap around the head, and a bedside box that produces a steady whirring sound. The point of the exam was to adjust the machine to give Mr. Hajjar the air he needed to get some rest, and quiet the snoring that bothers his wife.
It will take a week or so before doctors fully analyze the results of the couple’s sleep test, but Neil Friedman, a registered nurse who runs the clinic, said Mr. Hajjar suffers from sleep apnea and will probably be invited back for training on how to manage the problem, including simple tips like sleeping on his side instead of his back.
Because each partner’s snoring, shifting and occasional kicking would interrupt the other’s test, Mr. Hajjar and Ms. Jarka-Hajjar were asked, after initial testing, to retire to different rooms.
“We do let them stay together until the very end,” said Mr. Friedman, the center’s coordinator. “And they can actually kiss good night.”
From the archives: a classic love story of two snorers -http://nyti.ms/10CViVD
