Contraption

Every night, whether springsummerfallwinter, I wrap myself into the tubing and velcro head straps of a CPAP machine that keeps me breathing through the bouts of sleep apnea.  It's been over a year that I was tested and found to wake 43 times an hour to get air and no wonder I was not remembering in which drawer the car keys were, but how did they get in the fridge?  "Do you snore?", asked the doctor after the umpteenth complaint she heard from me regarding memory and energy loss.  How would I know, the cats never crabbed about it.  I went for an overnight test and Alakazam, the results demonstrated a lack of deep sleep. The machine itself is about the size of a lunchbox, and sits next to the bed.

The tubing is a nuisance, for it flips awkwardly and fills with condensation, causing burbling noises that sound like a dog drinking out of waterbowl.  Not a big deal, you shake out the water and pop it back together.  What my biggest complaint concerns is the plastic bubble part that sits on your face, sealing the jetplane pilot mask part to you, sort of.  If it isn't velcroed down tight enough, the thing slips around and leaks pressurized air, generally right into your eye.  I had started with the smaller mask, as the doctor I visited back then fussed about a full face mask being a danger if you were sick and aspirated vomit.  I have never vomited in my sleep in my life, maybe this is something to look forward to.  Also, with the small size mask I had to tape my mouth shut, or I snored, defeating the purpose.  This size also has tiny outlets for air to be released that fill with enough moisture to whistle like a high-pitched teakettle from hell.  No amount of toweling, cotton, or wicking relieved the whistling. All Night. This was a nuisance, and made my blood pressure pills roll around, laughing.

Opting for the larger mask that covers the mouth and nose was a better choice for me, but there are drawbacks.  The larger bubble separates from your face and produces whoopie cushion noises that do not respond to adjustment unless I took the darn thing off and repositioned straps, mask, blah blah.  Several times a night, this doesn't help the condition and creates a loss of sleep exacerbated by throwing the mask across the room.  Going online, I found what apparently is a solution.

The small box came today, and I am excited to try it out!  Whee!  Fabric triangles patterned to match the mask interface supposedly cushion things, relieving displacement, face farts, and those red marks that make you look like a 3 a.m. victim of a beating, especially on your way to work.  They are called Remzzzs Full Face & Nasal CPAP Mask Liners, and the box says they promote a comfortable, full night of sleep.  Sign me up, bwana.  I realize this is not big news to anyone but me, unless you are within a social orbit that circles my planet and have been waiting for me to do something for you that I said I would, like maybe three years ago but I've been so busy wrestling with apnea masks that a good sleep was sort of an itinerant tinker that stopped by as often as you now see the Fuller Brush Man, which is never.  A shame you don't run into those Fuller Brush people anymore, those brushes outlasted both my parents.

I also have ordered a new type of mask from the interwebs, touted as a lighter, easier to wear invention, as compared to the Star Wars get up donned nightly.  One can hope, for my sleep is better with the inflationary circus than without, but there is awkwardness and noise which makes me search for solutions.  Onward.

Time now to go for a test run with the mask liner, I am optimistic and heartened at the collected responses from Satisfied Customers on the ordering site.  It is Wednesday, a middle of a week day come to evening, sliding quickly into Thursday and Friday.  Stars are out, cats are already curled in favored roosts, and the plecostomus knows his feeding time is now.  His fins are out, like a Cadillac from 1962, his fishy eyes blink into his head, his nose rises to the surface to be rubbed.  Good night fish, good night cats, good night good people; to sleep, to sleep.