I told you all about it last year.

I’ve been waking up tired for years. I’d hit the sack at 10 p.m. and rise at 7 a.m., allegedly rested with an overnight sleep deposit of nine hours. Only most of the time, it felt like I hadn’t slept much at all. Turns out that was the case!

Experts on somnolent behavior at Ellis Hospital plugged me into electronic gizmos twice last fall and watched me all night. The tech crew determined I was taking such shallow breaths that my personal mission control center was forced to nudge me a hundred or so times a night, just to get the respiratory system back on line.

The docs said I never would have been conscious of these silent wake-up calls. And you never get full, relaxed versions of deep sleep when your breathing rhythm is shot.

The sleep talkers also say this scene — sleep apnea — is just about an epidemic these days. Left unchecked, years of snoring, shallow breaths, no breaths and subsequent jump-starts can put a strain on a person’s most important component, the old heart.

As I need at least 85 years of living to burn through expected and anticipated Social Security, 401 savings and Daily Gazette pension checks, I want to make sure my coronary, respiratory and nervous systems survive for another 30 years. I figure I’ve got about 5 more years before I really have to lay off the ketchup, cheeseburgers and mashed potatoes. No salt, no coffee, no hard liquor, no cigarettes in my diet ... so I’m not doing all that badly.

For the past eight weeks, I’ve been trying to accomplish the old in-and-out — breathing — all through the night. Helping out is a new personal assistant, the Philips Respironics “System One.” It’s a CPAP machine — continuous positive airway pressure. The “System One” is about the size of a shoe box, with a six-foot length of lightweight plastic hosing attached. The end of the hose fits into a mask that fits snugly over your nose. It sort of looks like a rig in a jet fighter plane.

This treatment of sleep apnea works to keep the upper airway open by providing a constant flow of air delivered through a face mask worn while sleeping. The pressure is prescribed at a certain level ... once masked up, you breathe whether you want to or not.

I’ll call the Philips machine “Sys-one.” Wouldn’t be comfortable referring to it as Philip or Philo. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld used to say, but I’d rather sleep with a Sys-one than a Phil or a Philo.

Sys-one has been a decent roommate so far. She’s relatively quiet, but she’s all about the wind. Once the machine is properly turned on — and I can do that without any sweet talk — the air starts moving through the hose with low force. There’s a built-in “ramp,” which means the machine automatically increases the air pressure over a 30-minute period. The science guys figure people will be nodding off within a half-hour; you’re never supposed to notice you’re getting kissed by a hurricane at 2 a.m.

Sys-one goes all night. But I have to get her soused, first — a task that is not unfamiliar to me. Of course, I’m joking ... but Sys-one needs a cup or two of water before it puts out any air; the docs want oxygen going into sleeping subjects properly warm and moist, so nasal passages don’t dry up.

The only problem is getting comfortable with the whole sensation. I’m still not used to sleeping with what feels like a catcher’s mitt covering my face. I’m constantly re-setting Sys-one, and sending her down to her lowest “ramp” air level, because the high-end, gale force setting is kind of annoying ... sort of like a low-power vacuum cleaner. And when you have the mask on, you look like a chipmunk — the snug fit of the head piece puffs up your cheeks.

Click HERE to see the Man in the Plastic Mask.

My sleep doctors aren’t crazy about taking sleeping pills to make life a little easier, and on weekends, I’ve had a few beers to get into the mood for a few hours with Sys-one. The medical advisors say a couple Benadryl, allergy pills that make you drowsy, or natural relaxants like Melatonin are OK, and they have helped a little. But most mornings, I’m still tired. People who have covered up with respirators in the past say the process takes some time, but is worth the first bunch of weeks of discomfort.

The thing is, Sys-one is really an agency girl, property of a local home health care outfit. My insurance company pays most of the monthly cost of her overnight stays, and I pay like $30. But the insurance guys want to make sure I’m taking the air every night, and that’s why there’s a small computer chip in the back of the machine. This snoop supposedly is counting all the hours Sys-one and I have been spending together behind closed doors.

The machine knows when it’s being ignored, too. If sleepless guys say, “The hell with it,” after tossing and turning for five hours, and toss the mask to the other side of the bed, the computer inside the machine will register the absent inhales and exhales. When the insurance guys get the computer chip, and see low usage numbers, they might call their Sys-one model back home.

I’ve got to keep the respironics rep on the job. At least for now.

But if I get married sometime during the year, Sys-one is going to have to move into the guest room. Two’s company, three’s a crowd.