Kitty scrutinised the questionnaire… four pages long but deceptively direct. Does snoring affect your partner? ’Yes,’ she wrote, pressing down rather harder than necessary with her pen. ‘It inevitably turns all my “partners” into one-night stands.’ She took a deep breath and scanned the waiting room of the Sleep Disorder Clinic for a kindred spirit.
This would be the perfect place to meet a man, she thought. She looked round hopefully for an unattached under-50. No luck.
There were, however, rather encouragingly, a few single women. After reading the clinic’s brochure Kitty felt momentarily comforted - apparently one in 10 women and one in three men snore. Safety in numbers, maybe, but there was no escaping the fact that while it is acceptable, and even expected, for some boys to wheeze, growl and honk their way through a deep slumber, it is simply not on or, as one of her lovers had so cruelly put it, ‘frankly quite frightening’ for girls to snore. Time for action. The Sleep Clinic had ways of curtailing unladylike rumblings.
Her hero was George Mochloulis, an ear, nose and throat surgeon who was as skilled with a laser as Luke Skywalker. ‘We will take away that loud nasal snore by removing the vibrating soft tissue around the uvula at the back of your throat with a laser,’ said Mr Mochloulis authoritatively.
Kitty looked alarmed. An uvula sounded important to hang onto. ‘The uvula is the flap of skin that vibrates and produces the snore,’ he said.
‘We can reshape it, making the hole at the back of your throat bigger so there’ll be less vibration. Although in some cases we cannot take away all the noise, it should not be loud enough to disturb anyone.’ ‘That gives me good vibes,’ joked Kitty.
‘Open wide,’ said Mr Mochloulis as he donned what looked like a miner’s headlamp and peered down Kitty’s throat. ‘Ah yes, you have rather a large tongue - the tongue’s responsible for 20 per cent of snoring.’ Kitty frowned…surely large tongue are an asset? She wanted to put this point across but was temporarily impaired by the wooden spatula pressing down on hers.
Mr Mochloulis moved swiftly on to her nose. ‘Please flare your nostrils,’ he said, pulling out a pair of tweezers (blocked nasal passage account for 25 per cent of snoring). ‘Eeeowwww,’ squealed Kitty. She blew her nose and tried to regain her composure as Mr Mochloulis confirmed that she would be a good candidate for the procedure. Huffing and puffing, she booked a date into her diary.
Back in Mr Mochloulis’s chair Kitty felt slightly nervous as she donned a pair of extremely large protective glasses. Must think of Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, not Marathon Man, she thought. ‘I’m going to give you a local anaesthetic at the back of your throat so you will feel no pain,’ said Mr Mochloulis.
Kitty was notoriously dramatic when it came to injections. During her schooldays she would take to a sick bed in the san after the flu jab. But it was her empty bed at home that was motivating her now, so braved it.
As promised, it was an unpleasant rather than painful sensation. She felt like she wanted to gag, but Mr Mochloulis’s nurse was super-kind and held her hand as he zapped away with the laser.
The whole thing was over in 10 minutes. Kitty went home with a bagful of painkillers and a dull ache in her throat that felt a bit like tonsillitis. Mr Mochloulis gave her strict instructions to eat and drink normally, and told her she would be fully back to normal within 10 days.
A month later, it was time to road-test her throat. Julio was a six-foot-three Spanish Adonis she had met in the ready-meals section of Marks & Spencer. Snuggling up under her Frette duvet cover she drifted off into a silent sleep. Minutes later she awoke to a deep rumbling noise form the other side of the bed. I think Julio needs to meet Mr Mochloulis, she smiled to herself.
Source: Tatler
