CPAP

As I mentioned in my blog of June 13 We decided to establish local doctors and dentists here in Traverse City. Well one of the upshots of that resulted in my new cardiologist, Dr. Michael Lauer putting me through a pretty through physical examination. I've had blood tests, a chemical stress test, had funny machines whirl around my body probing my insides with mysterious rays, underwent  a cardiac catheterization where they run a probe up the artery in my groin to my heart and then squirt a dye into my blood stream and watch it on a TV which is mysteriously looking at my insides. Then he had a self administered test kit sent to me where I hooked myself up to some kind of a computer, slept through the night with it and then mailed it back for analysis.  Results were that I supposedly need more oxygen at night so I was sent to a gas man (Harbor Oxygen) to get an oxygen machine to wear nights. But hold on, Dr. Lauer wasn't done with me yet; On Tuesday night July 12, I had to go to a "Sleep Center": where I slept in a room with about a hundred wires attached to my body & head, with a "Darth Vader" mask over my nose and a voyeur watching me on CCTV all night. The voyeur, was apparently disappointed that he failed to catch me in some kind of self-abusel activity, and to get even, he diagnosed me with sleep apnea. So on Thursday the 14th, back I went to the gas man to get hooked up with a CPAP machine.
To use the machine you have to wear a "Darth Vader" mask which covers your body's air input ports and supplies you with a constant positive air pressure when you inhale. There are several types of masks available, some that cover your entire face, some that only cover your mouth & nose, some that only cover your nose, and some, called nasal pillows, that seal directly to your nostrils. I went with the Swift FX Nasal Pillow mask as it seemed less invasive. Well...that night I lasted about two hours with that CCRAP machine. It made the inside of my nostrils very sore. Torquemada could have used one during the Spanish Inquisition. So Friday morning I packed it all up and back to Harbor Oxygen. They then sent me back home with a nasal mask made by Drive Medical.

Here I am pretending to sleep in my second mask all ready for SCUBA diving. I wore this one thru Friday night but it makes the bridge of my nose quite sore so Monday it goes back for a third try. If I'm gonna do this then I hafta get it right or I won't wear it.

You will notice that Nazzie appears to be a bit skeptical of the whole thing. ;-)