Fortunately, the guy was booked solid for two months, so I've got the best of both worlds right now: I can tell everyone who keeps hassling me to see a doctor, i.e. my mom, that I have scheduled a check-up, but I don't have to actually do it until November, which is so far in the future I can't even process it! That said, if I should actually survive long enough for the dreaded event, I have a serious question that I am hoping members of the Awl community will be able to answer: What's the current calculus on the percentage of how much you drink and smoke that you reveal to your practitioner? I haven't had a check-up in seven years. Back then I recall the standard acceptable fiction being about a third of actual consumption. Has the ratio changed? I mean, if I'm going through the trouble of attending this thing I'd hate to get my lies wrong. Thanks in advance for all your help!

Severe nightly episodes of interrupted breathing during sleep – commonly known as sleep apnea – double the risk of death for middle-age men, according to a new study being called the largest ever conducted on the disorder.

Even men with moderate sleep apnea – anywhere from 15 to 30 instances of oxygen deprivation per hour – appear to be 45 percent more likely to die from any cause than those who have no nighttime breathing problems.

I for sure have sleep apnea—I literally lurch forward several times a night gasping for air or choking on drool—but as my typical procedure on health related matters is the time-tested method of ignoring it and hoping it will self-correct, this is more than a little alarming. On the other hand, "It's a chronic exposure… One night's exposure in itself is not a health risk. … It happens hundreds of times a night and it goes on for decades." Decades? I can probably handle that!