Tag Archives: CPAP

A Pleasant Surprise

Early this week after I had finished my evening’s writing I found that I could not fall asleep. I spent a fitful twenty minuets in bed, but In knew I wasn’t falling asleep anytime soon. So instead of bothering my sweetie-wife by tossing and turning I got up, de-equiped my CPAP mask and such, and returned to the living room.
I decided to watch a TV show on disc, figuring about 40-50 minutes should put me in a more accepting mode for snoozing. I took out my latest TV acquisition, Star Trek The Original Series Season 3 on blu-ray.
Yeah, yeah, season three the one that gave us space-hippies and Spock’s Brain. However I selected The Tholian Web as my late night Star Trek Fix.
I had seen the episode before of course, but not in like twenty years or more. This is a much better episode and very strongly written. The science isn’t terrible — how nice to see c used as a unit as speed as it should be in this sort of setting — and the character dynamics were very nicely played out.

I had two out of episode thoughts that kept occurring to me.

1) I kept watching James Doohan’s right hand. Scotty has a lot to do in this episode and I marveled as what skill Jimmy Doohan showed in constantly making sure he right hand was out of frame or hidden from the camera.  (Doohan lost a finger in WWII and concealed the fact on camera.)

2) I wondered why they had written an episode with so little Kirk in it. Usually you make sure you get the most out of your stars. They cost big bucks and you pay them even if they aren’t there. I know often episode like this will happen is a star is sick or engaged. I have no idea if this is the case with Shatner and The Tholian Web, but I am happy with the results.

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This CPAP thing is getting kind of rough

So, I got a new CPAP machine last week. This one — the exact same model as my last one — is covered by the insurance because it came through their vendor. Since I was changing machines and vendors I thought I might switch masks as well.

I had been using what are called nasal pillows. As you can see it is a very minimal mask system. It’s light and when I tried it in the hospital during the study it seemed to work for me.

Alas at home i didn’t work out so well. I toss and turn a lot in my sleep and the nasal pillows would shift and move, breaking the seal and then jetting air outside my nose. I would also wake up to find the nasal pillow in my hand. I had taken them off in my sleep. No good.

So I switched to a nasal mask.This thing has two straps coming off the forehead piece, two more that come off the bottom of the mask making for a very secure fit. I was fairly confident that this maks would not slip as easily as the nasal pillows.

It doesn’t. However it seems in my sleep I do find it uncomfortable. I have awakened in the night, or had my sweetie-wife wake and tell me, to find the mask off and discarded. Last night it only happened once so I happy about that, but it’s a problem that is proving tough to lick.

I will have to lick it. Not only is sleep apena very dangerous to your health, I really really like the way I feel when I have gotten a good night’s sleep.

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