Medicare is rough, I guess

Good thing I'm not on it.

Had my visit with the pulmonary guy today.  I'm down a total of 17lbs since I began cutting back, etc, so thats good.  The c-pap machine has a memory card in it that I brought with to my appointment.  It stores data for the use of the machine and apparently some other things too.  According to this guy I saw today, I would be in non-compliance as far as usage of the machine goes if I were on medicare and would probably be screwed.  Why, you ask?

Well for starters, there were several times during the first month of use that I seem to have removed the mask in my sleep.  I would wake up and the mask would be next to me or on the floor.  This was never done consciously.  And lo and behold, the machine recognized this and recorded it.  There are also times where I will wake up and the mask will no longer be covering my mouth, just my nose.  So when this happens I readjust the mask and go back to sleep.  Nonetheless, the machine records the time the mask is not fully covering the areas it should be and logs those results.  And then there were a total of 9 (according to the data) nights where I crashed before I had a chance to put the mask on.  That put me at 86% usage with just over 2 hours a night of what is considered to be proper use of the mask.  Apparently this machine is pretty sophisticated.

Um....oops?

On the plus side, when I am using the mask my incidents are down to 2 an hour (from 94).  Or was that 2 per night?  I forget, but either way thats really good.  And my sleeping HAS improved.  The other day my son and I were on the reclining sofa, both of us reclined on our respective sides and not in view of each other.  I dozed off and he kept talking to me even though I was asleep.  He didn't know I was asleep because, for once, I wasn't snoring like a T-Rex.  So thats good too, and a sign that I am getting some benefit from this.

Now the frustrating this is that I AM using the mask.  The removal of it was subconscious and hasn't happened for awhile.  I've been told by the medical supply reps that this is pretty normal for everyone and it usually takes a good 3 months to get used to the mask.  The thing with it covering my face improperly, as it turns out, wasn't necessarily my fault either.  Turns out the mask is too small (which I kind of figured already) and I had a rep out today to try and get me a new one.  Turns out I decided to stay with the same model I use now, just in a bigger size.  And of course they were fresh out of those, so it will take as long as 2 weeks to get me a new one.

So I go back in 3 months (appointment on my birthday!) and the guy said that if I was still having trouble he could make some adjustments to the air flow.  Not change the pressure because thats prescribed and cannot be altered (I'm at 16 out of I think 21) but he said there were some things he could do to maybe help the situation.  He also said that he had no doubt that I was trying, that I wasn't just blowing this off.  So at least he's working with me on it.

And on the plus side also, no calls from work today.  Yay.  Get to back tomorrow, not looking forward to that.  I wish I could blog about the insanity thats happening there but I don't think thats a good idea right now.  Never know who's reading.