A man from Johns Hopkins came this morning and delivered my CPAP machine, and gave me a short lecture on how to use it.  He came to my door with the CPAP in its smallish carrying bag slung over his shoulder, and I was surprised at first glance by how small and innocuous looking it was.

We sat around my kitchen table, a spot that’s become my place to interrogate the various contractors that have come into my house to do business.  Last time it was a parade of home heating and air conditioning contractors that sat there with me.  For about an hour the guy from Hopkins gave me the beginner’s lecture on how to operate and care for the unit, at first speaking to me like I was a little old lady who’d never seen an electronic device before, except maybe radio she listens to her soap operas on.  There was a time when that sort of thing would have really gotten my goat, but I’ve mellowed a tad in my middle age. There’s this so true it hurts passage in William Dale Jennings’ The Cowboys, where the trail boss, Wil Andersen, observes that it’s the smart boys you have to watch the most, because the slow boys will eventually get it, and once they do they’ve got it for life, but the smart ones are always trying to out think everything and it gets them into trouble.  Do tell.  So now when I’m being lectured below my grade level I just sit and listen anyway.  And the lecture gave me a chance to glean what the typical CPAP patient must be like, and what they usually didn’t get right about using their machines.

The Unit they sent me is a REMstar Pro-2, which according to my paperwork, only cost my insurance company 90 dollars.  However, the add-on humidifier unit cost an additional three-hundred.  With extras (like the mask) the total bill to my insurance company was about five-hundred and fifty dollars.  A lot less then I’d worried.  For kicks I searched for a price online and saw the same unit selling for around five-hundred dollars without the humidifier, and five-hundred, ninety with.  I have no idea what kind of creative billing is going on here with my insurance company and Johns Hopkins, but it boils down to the same price either way.

The REMstar is smallish and very lightweight… about the size and heft of a largish toaster.  It seems made particularly for traveling, an issue I’d raised several times at the sleep clinic.  It takes a two-prong non-polarized plug so it can theoretically plug in just about anywhere here in North America.  The mask they gave me is similar to the one I used at the sleep clinic: it fits just around my nose and has a nice soft gel cushion around it, making it very comfortable to wear.  It straps around my head like a pilot’s oxygen mask with Velcro and buckle adjustments.  But you take it off by unsnapping a toggle snap around the front of the mask. 

The air hose attaches via an elbow joint that can freely move around as you turn your head on the pillow.  I just tried laying down with it on a moment ago and without all the wires attached to me I had on at the sleep clinic, it’s actually very comfortable.  The only thing is I can’t bury my face in the pillow.  But I don’t do that anyway.  Mostly I sleep on my side or my stomach, with my face to one side or the other on the pillow’s edge, and this mask works just fine for that.  The only thing that might disturb my sleep is tugging on my face by the air hose.  But they gave me a six foot hose so I’m hoping that won’t happen.

My prescription pressure setting is the lowest possible for this machine, which makes sense because in the first sleep clinic they determined that I didn’t have it severe enough that I actually ever stopped breathing.  I only have these periods of difficulty during the night that pull me back out of a deep sleep, so I never get much of any deep sleep.  I strongly suspect that it’s more the sound of snoring, then any mild difficulty I have breathing, that’s jarring me awake at night.  I know for a fact that’s what’s been knocking me awake while I’m trying to nap in the afternoons.  I’ll be drifting to sleep and then the back of my throat suddenly catches and I’ll start to snore and it’ll just pop me right back awake.  First thing I noticed during the second sleep clinic stay was that wasn’t happening with the CPAP machine on.  I still had a horrible night, but it was all the wires they’d attached to me that kept waking me up.  And that damn coffin sized bed I couldn’t stretch out on.

I’ll probably try my new machine out this afternoon during one of my naps.  I’m hoping to notice right away that I’m breathing much better, and going to sleep better.  How long it will take my body to notice after all these years of not sleeping well is another story.