I have a CPAP machine to help me breath when I sleep. For those who do not know a CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure and is used to help a person who has obstructive sleep apnea breathe more easily during sleep. A CPAP machine increases air pressure in your throat so that your airway doesnt collapse when you breathe. Basically you strap a mask to your face that covers your nose and mouth and it inflates you head to stop your fat ass from choking to death in your sleep. For those who have never had the thrill of wearing this wondrous device allow me to illuminate you with the concept of having this thing on your face when you sleep. The first time you put it on, it is quite literally like having an alien face hugger attached to your head. The straps wrap around the back of your skull and it covers your nose and mouth. It forces you to breath and the tube that pumps air into your head will almost certainly wrap itself around your neck. So as you can imagine it takes some time to get used to. When you finally get used to sleeping like an H.R. Giger drawing you must then get used to a few other things. As air is forced into your face to keep your throat open and there is a lot of pressure, which traditionally make your cheeks puff out. Not unpleasant but you will wake felling like your cheeks could give Dizzy Gillespie a run for his money (look it up young people). The worst part is while sleeping, when the mask breaks it seal....and it will...the machine detects the loss in pressure and pumps its little brains out trying to keep your head pressurized. This means where the seal breaks (almost always aimed at your eye) it sounds like a jet airplane. This is combined with massive stream of pressurized air firing out. Traditionally this hits your eye so hard that it separates the closed eyelids. This causes several things to happen...first the air gets under the eyelid causing it to inflate and puff up quite literally making you look like a 1960 cartoon character as your eyelids flap around with pressurized air shooting into it. It will also dry your eyeball out instantly and take blinking from an involuntary process to an extremely difficult semi-voluntary process. Truly...it joyous. Last night however, I got to experience a new fantastic event in my CPAP mask. I have some pretty serious allergies. When I went to bed last night I noted my cat was on top of my CPAP mask. So I shoo-ed him away and as I normally do strapped the mask to my face, turned the machine on and started to try and nod off. What I didnt notice was the god damn cat hair in my mask that immediately found its way into my nose. Before I could grab the mask and rip it off my head, I violently sneezed. I would like my readers to picture sneezing into a fan...now amplify that by about 100. The sneeze literally blew the pressurized mask off my face, however the air flow blew the sneeze directly back into my face at like mach 5. Showered with snot, this was not the worst part...Because of the violent forces at work the mask did not land back where it started but landed half over my nose and half over my eyes. The machine, sensing the broken seal begins to fully push air as hard as it can....so, air at this point is now blasting through my nostrils and out of my mouth forcing me to make this type of wispy honking kind of noise. I begin snatching and grabbing at the mask to remove it and stop myself from attracting any Bull Elephant Seals that might be in the neighborhood. I finally rip the damn thing off my head but not before it had dried out both of my eyes and my entire nasal system. My eyes were both devoid of moisture to the point that one of them simply would not even blink and the other blinked once and stuck shut. While I waited for my eyes to finally be able to water again, I was also trying to swallow as my throat had been completely air dried. I needed water. So, I begin to stumble toward the bathroom...not sure what I am going to do when I get there...but there I head. Accidentally kick the cat...good Stub toe on wall...bad Fall over damn Rottweiler...consider painting her neon orange so I can see her at night. When I get to the bathroom, I must admit my first thought was to dunk my entire head into the toilet to get some water back into it. However I settled for Visine and a cup of water. woot cpap.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 20:20:32 +0000
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