My first night in the Cthulhu machine
Nov. 16th, 2013 06:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyWell, the assimilation is off to a rocky start.
Yesterday I went to get my CPAP machine (after a little bit of drama about whether my health insurance company would authorize the damn thing before my appointment: there was a message on the answering machine Thursday night saying they needed to reschedule because the authorization hadn't come through, but mercifully, when I called yesterday at noon, the nice woman on the phone double-checked for me, and they'd gotten the authorization that morning--insert huge sigh of relief here). The sleep clinic does not itself provide the machines; one has to go to a "home health" provider--the one I chose, purely on the basis of geographic convenience, is in a strip mall. It's next door to a furniture store, so, basically, the interior of a warehouse has been converted into a cubicle maze. The effect is a little unheimlich.
My respiratory therapist was very nice, very patient, and clearly used to working with people who are not even remotely comfortable or confident when faced with a piece of new technology. He commented several times on how quickly I picked up on things, and I refrained from telling him that there was nothing to pick up on.
Which is just as well, because the blow to my pride is heavy enough as is.
So I brought the thing home, got it its distilled water, and last night set it up on the two-drawer filing cabinet that serves as my nightstand. And plugged myself into it.
The first problem I have with the CPAP machine is purely on my end, because it's the insult to my dignity. For those of you who also have to assimilate yourself at night, I'm starting out with the nasal pillows, rather than either of the more strap-heavy mask options, and I just feel goddamn fucking ridiculous. I am reminding myself, believe me, that this is necessary; that it is probably going to improve my quality of life immeasurably; that it is a piece of medical equipment; that there's nobody to see me but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mirrorthaw, and if I know anything in the world, it's that he won't think less of me; but I still just cringe. From this perspective, and this perspective alone, the mask would actually be preferable, because I wouldn't feel quite so much like I was wearing the world's worst elephant costume.
But anyway (as Mike Ford always said when looping back from a tangent). That's an attitude problem, not actually a problem with the technology. The second problem--and I'm sure I'll learn to cope better--is that I could not, last night, figure out how to sleep in any configuration except lying on my side facing the machine. Which isn't terrible--it's better than sleeping on my back--but the combination of the RLS and the remaining stiffness (and titanium) in my ankle joint mean that I kind of need to roll over occasionally. And every time I tried, the weight of the tubing pulled the nasal pillows down enough to break the seal. When I go to bed tonight, I'm obviously going to have to practice before I turn out the light.
The third problem is the stumper. I woke up once last night around two, went to the bathroom, came back. No particular difficulty, aside from trying to negotiate the machine and the tubing and the nasal pillows in the pitch black dark and agonizing over whether I was making enough noise to wake my long-suffering spouse. Then I woke up again around four-thirty, went to the bathroom, came back . . . and managed to do something to the machine that my kind and patient respiratory therapist had not taught me about. All it would do was sit there and blink its status light at me. It would not light its menu screen, it would come on, it would not go off. It just sat there and fucking blinked. I unplugged it and plugged it back in again. No joy, just the blinking as if it was trying to tell me something in Morse code. Possibly S.O.S. By this time, I had woken my long-suffering spouse, so I turned on the light. I still couldn't see anything wrong. Finally, I said fuck it, if I haven't used the machine for the required four hours, I just won't be in compliance tonight, and--(I admit) with a certain amount of vicious satisfaction--unplugged it.
By that time, (a) I was pretty thoroughly awake and (b), worse, my RLS was awake. Even the relief of being able to roll over wasn't enough of a counter-balalnce. So I got up, came downstairs, and wrote this blog post. At some point later today, when I feel less like heaving the machine through the window, I will have to get out the manual and try to figure out what I did. But for tonight, my quality of sleep has been drastically disimproved by my little Cthulhu machine, and I am sitting here doing a slow burn at my unoffending computer monitor. I know that it's just that it's new; there are inevitably going to be some, er, teething problems (although that's an image I would have been better off not coming up with). But seriously. Goddammit. The offered solution for my sleep disturbances is seriously disturbing my sleep.
I disapprove.
Yesterday I went to get my CPAP machine (after a little bit of drama about whether my health insurance company would authorize the damn thing before my appointment: there was a message on the answering machine Thursday night saying they needed to reschedule because the authorization hadn't come through, but mercifully, when I called yesterday at noon, the nice woman on the phone double-checked for me, and they'd gotten the authorization that morning--insert huge sigh of relief here). The sleep clinic does not itself provide the machines; one has to go to a "home health" provider--the one I chose, purely on the basis of geographic convenience, is in a strip mall. It's next door to a furniture store, so, basically, the interior of a warehouse has been converted into a cubicle maze. The effect is a little unheimlich.
My respiratory therapist was very nice, very patient, and clearly used to working with people who are not even remotely comfortable or confident when faced with a piece of new technology. He commented several times on how quickly I picked up on things, and I refrained from telling him that there was nothing to pick up on.
Which is just as well, because the blow to my pride is heavy enough as is.
So I brought the thing home, got it its distilled water, and last night set it up on the two-drawer filing cabinet that serves as my nightstand. And plugged myself into it.
The first problem I have with the CPAP machine is purely on my end, because it's the insult to my dignity. For those of you who also have to assimilate yourself at night, I'm starting out with the nasal pillows, rather than either of the more strap-heavy mask options, and I just feel goddamn fucking ridiculous. I am reminding myself, believe me, that this is necessary; that it is probably going to improve my quality of life immeasurably; that it is a piece of medical equipment; that there's nobody to see me but
mirrorthaw, and if I know anything in the world, it's that he won't think less of me; but I still just cringe. From this perspective, and this perspective alone, the mask would actually be preferable, because I wouldn't feel quite so much like I was wearing the world's worst elephant costume.But anyway (as Mike Ford always said when looping back from a tangent). That's an attitude problem, not actually a problem with the technology. The second problem--and I'm sure I'll learn to cope better--is that I could not, last night, figure out how to sleep in any configuration except lying on my side facing the machine. Which isn't terrible--it's better than sleeping on my back--but the combination of the RLS and the remaining stiffness (and titanium) in my ankle joint mean that I kind of need to roll over occasionally. And every time I tried, the weight of the tubing pulled the nasal pillows down enough to break the seal. When I go to bed tonight, I'm obviously going to have to practice before I turn out the light.
The third problem is the stumper. I woke up once last night around two, went to the bathroom, came back. No particular difficulty, aside from trying to negotiate the machine and the tubing and the nasal pillows in the pitch black dark and agonizing over whether I was making enough noise to wake my long-suffering spouse. Then I woke up again around four-thirty, went to the bathroom, came back . . . and managed to do something to the machine that my kind and patient respiratory therapist had not taught me about. All it would do was sit there and blink its status light at me. It would not light its menu screen, it would come on, it would not go off. It just sat there and fucking blinked. I unplugged it and plugged it back in again. No joy, just the blinking as if it was trying to tell me something in Morse code. Possibly S.O.S. By this time, I had woken my long-suffering spouse, so I turned on the light. I still couldn't see anything wrong. Finally, I said fuck it, if I haven't used the machine for the required four hours, I just won't be in compliance tonight, and--(I admit) with a certain amount of vicious satisfaction--unplugged it.
By that time, (a) I was pretty thoroughly awake and (b), worse, my RLS was awake. Even the relief of being able to roll over wasn't enough of a counter-balalnce. So I got up, came downstairs, and wrote this blog post. At some point later today, when I feel less like heaving the machine through the window, I will have to get out the manual and try to figure out what I did. But for tonight, my quality of sleep has been drastically disimproved by my little Cthulhu machine, and I am sitting here doing a slow burn at my unoffending computer monitor. I know that it's just that it's new; there are inevitably going to be some, er, teething problems (although that's an image I would have been better off not coming up with). But seriously. Goddammit. The offered solution for my sleep disturbances is seriously disturbing my sleep.
I disapprove.
