The Future of Sleep Is Now!

Apparently, she doesn't come with the bed

I am now the proud owner of a Tempur-Pedic® Swedish Sleep System™. Well, exactly how proud I am of this new development I will find out, as I have not yet slept on my new mattress, but it is here in my possession. Before the Future arrived at my doorstep today, like many of you short-sighted Cro-Magnons, I too slept on a pathetic innerspring mattress. In the fall of 2001 when I moved out of the tiny, two bedroom apartment situated in the student ghetto, near the campus of the University of Michigan, with its landlord-furnished twin bed, and into the palatial accommodations of my new housemate Doug’s 1100 square-foot ranch home in Ann Arbor’s bustling Urban West Side neighborhood, I needed to buy a new mattress. So, I ventured over to the local Art Van furniture store and lay down $500—of the first paycheck I had yet to earn from my new teaching position—on a full size mattress and box spring. Why the upgrade from twin to full size? A kid has to grow up sometime, I guess. Plus, I had a lady-friend; I needed the extra space.

That mattress served me well (and the ladies better), but as with seemingly every other aspect of my life my accident in January 2004 altered my bedroom landscape. In the hospitals and medical care facilities I found myself convalescing in throughout the first nine months of 2004, I slept on a variety of mattresses and beds designed to maximize the administration of my necessary medical care. These beds featured numerous adjustability functions to assist the various attendant staff that got me dressed or undressed, in and out of bed, to and from my wheelchair, with a practical level of ease. When the time came for me to finally move on into my own apartment there was a question of what I was going to do about my sleeping accommodations. I was still in need of assistance with dressing and undressing care as well as the need for a nearly equal height differential between my wheelchair and whatever other surface I wanted to transfer on to. Furthermore, there was a concern over the type of surface I would be sleeping on in regards to how I was going to deal with proper pressure relief. I was warned on many occasions about the dangers of sleeping in one position all night long and how if I was unable to move around at night, I would be highly susceptible to pressure sores; which if I got one, I would almost certainly end back up in managed care.

I spent many therapy sessions developing the skills and techniques associated with being able to change body position at night, and with the right combination of bed mobility equipment—hand rails and the like—I was confident I would be able to manage my own nightly pressure relief. My other goal was to not have to purchase a hospital-style bed for my new apartment as I had grown rather fond of my old full size bed. Although an adjustable hospital bed would allow me to set the perfect height for my transfers, elevate my head if needed and adjust to give my aides better positioning to help me dress, I wanted to limit the amount of medical equipment set up through my apartment and bedroom. I wanted as close a return to the normalcy I knew before my accident as possible. Besides, although it was irrelevant at that point in time, maybe in the future I’d have another lady-friend; a twin-sized hospital bed just doesn’t readily suggest “bacchanalian pleasure den.”

So, with a little ingenuity and a couple of two-by-fours my dad was able to construct a bed frame at the approximate height as to where I could keep my old mattress and would be able to transfer in and out of bed without too much trepidation…Ladies? Yet, as seen here, my limited mobility and the need to sit up in bed as I dress and undress put excessive strain of the innerspring coils in the left-center portion of my mattress, and even with numerous rotations and flips from one side to the other, a significant, uncomfortable dent developed. I also think with my old mattress was contributing to some chronic soreness I began experiencing in my shoulders and neck. With the comfort limitations and degenerating condition of my old mattress in mind, I set out looking to find a suitable mattress solution.

Thus, I’m banking my sweet dreams on the belief that the Swedish and NASA have come up with that solution in the form of a Tempur-Pedic® Swedish Sleep System™. That’s right, Bitches, you read that right—the Swedish. The inventors, in no particular order, of ball bearings, zippers, leggy blondes and turbo! And NASA: the North American Aeronautics and Space Administration; the people that brought you Velcro, faking moon landings on sound stages, and Tang. Believe you me; I can’t wait to wake up to some sweet Tang after an awesome night of astronaut-worthy of sleep (this whole post may have been an elaborate excuse to make an astronaut-Tang joke, of which I am extremely proud). But if those two sets of credentials aren’t good enough for you, let me allow Tempur-Pedic, Inc. to explain their own brilliance; from their press kit:

This breakthrough in sleep technology is viscoelastic, breathable and temperature sensitive. It self-adjusts to body size, using weight and heat to distribute pressure over its entire surface. This amazing material remains firm where needed and soft where desired–creating a custom fit for each individual body.

The original formula, developed for NASA, was not suited for introduction to the consumer market. After nearly a decade and millions of research dollars, Tempur-Pedic’s Swedish scientists introduced the perfected version of the material.

The vision of NASA scientists – a material that would provide pressure-relieving support to astronauts as they explored the universe – is now revolutionizing the future of comfort on earth. Tempur-Pedic’s dedication to producing the next “giant leap for mankind” is truly Changing the way the world sleeps!™

I’m going to sleep this shit out of this thing.