i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

This week, through Saturday, Canine Companions has a live puppy stream going at http://canine.org/puppy/ ... 7-week lab puppies are impossibly cute. Jussayin'.

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Still sick, but feeling vaguely human again. I had stopped using the cpap while I was having sinus pressure and blockage, Friday through Sunday, but I definitely sleep better with it going, so last night I went back to it.

I dreamed of a MMORPG boss encounter (that doesn't actually exist) ... it was designed for two people, in that there were two stations with dials that had to be set and then levers pulled, but I was soloing it, so running back and forth. Occasionally the boss would pop in and radiate green, but as long as you were far enough away you wouldn't take damage. So you had to stand towards the outside edge of each lever station, so that when the boss popped up next to you there'd be enough room to run to the other end of the stage -- if he appeared in the middle of the room you had to hope you had good healing. Then once the levers were all set you could actually damage the boss, which was easy because I was overleveled for the encounter, and at the end you got a piece of a particular set of wicked-looking studded leather armor. The armor level was low for my character but there was a game mechanic where you could combine ugly-but-good armor with pretty-but-flimsy armor to get the stats of one and the look of the other. So I was farming the encounter for the armor set so that I could combine and also dye it all black.

The mmo dreams I have aren't exactly either Guild Wars or WOW or anything else I've played, but a sort of hybrid; location names are often a stolen mishmash, e.g. I'll map-jump from Lion's Arch to Orgrimmar to Cantha to Ironforge. It's kind of fascinating.

If I pause while breathing, my cpap mask hums at me. I don't think it's intentional, just some function of a specific air pressure level causing resonance somewhere in the mask or near tubing (I suspect the thing I call an "exhale port" that allows my out-breaths to go out or something, idk: all I really know is that if the tube isn't at precisely the right position, I get warm humid exhale breath on my face). Maybe it's the exhale port complaining because the cpap-pushed air can't go into me if I close off air passages?

It's not enough to wake me, but if I'm awake and breathing in a certain pattern (in, out, pause) it's very noticeable. In, out, hum. In, out, hum.

I finally had to pull up a virtual keyboard to figure out what note it is. (F#, slightly under pitch.)

...I'm not a dork, what are you talking about... 😂

Pretty sure the universe hates me right now.

Point: my chair is semi broken. Last week I went to go somewhere and *couldn't get out of the van* because motor 2 was disconnected. It took 45 minutes and two (strong) people to get me out -- luckily once I got back inside, the chair started behaving again, but I am afraid to go anywhere in case I get stuck, either in the van again or outside someplace. The theory is that something in the right-side motor is loose/worn enough that the disengage lever slips out of fully locked. (Which also means it's totally unrelated to the joystick falling off earlier.) They've ordered new parts but this tends to be the sort of thing that, based on delivery times, is handmade by Tibetan unicorns in the light of a full moon and then shipped via narcoleptic yak.

It's been a week, and so far I've missed a book group discussion that only meets every other month, reiki, choir rehearsal, soul collage, and I forgot what else but fuck. Also all three pets had vet appointments, so my aide had to go be my proxy.

Point: my brain feels like it has somehow short-circuited because stress and because I don't know if the chair will die completely or when it will be fixed. i can't focus on anything or do anything or ... anything.

Point: the aide that was leaving at the end of the month? Apparently the other client needs her sooner so as of Monday she can't work for me in the afternoons. She's still doing her two morning shifts through the end of feb, but not the three afternoon ones. I found this out tonight.

Point: the power went out at around midnight and stayed out for two hours. Something was beeping. My bed (alternating air pressure mattress) requires power. My cpap requires power. My fan requires power. Too hot and uncomfortable to sleep. And I couldn't even distract myself with Netflix because internet requires power (and while I do have videos on my iPad, I didn't want to drain the battery down and have nothing, if the power stayed out). I got the cpap hoses disconnected so I could breathe (it is very awkward and stifling to try to breathe through the filters and stuff when it's unpowered) ... but then when the power came back on couldn't get it connected again (partly hecause the hose attached to my face mask isn't quite long enough for me to hold well, partly because I can't bring my hands together) so I had to wake my roommate up. Which is, granted, one of the reasons she's here, but I still hate doing it.

Point: it is ::squints at clock:: 3:30 and I am not asleep and my brain doesn't want to go to sleep (it's like a very small toddler, just less mobile). I'm also hungry and craving sugar, but I haven't figured out a way to eat stuff in bed, and anyway shouldn't be having a lot of sugar, though I'm thinking of saying fuck it and just gorging on chocolate tomorrow, because who fucking cares if it's healthy, give me all the sugars.

...well, "fun".

Brief background; I bugged my doctor into letting me take a sleep test, amd bugged him into getting me a cpap even though my sleep apnea was only "mild". There are several types of masks. Broadly speaking, there are nasal "pillows" which kind of sit under or sometimes in the nose; a triangle pyramid-ish thing over the nose; triangle thing over nose and mouth, which to me kind of look like fighter pilot masks (::briefly derails, thinking about Tom Hardy in Dunkirk::), and full face masks. For safety reasons I can't do anything over the mouth -- I can't take the mask off myself, and so vomiting would be ... bad -- so the latter two are out. And I use my iPad at night, for insomnia and for music and for anti-brainweasel activity, but I can't raise my arms, which means masks with high profiles are a problem. Which restricts me to nasal pillows.

I've been using a mask that is tricky for people to put on me -- there is a small length of wide tubing that goes up a bit into the nostril, and it likes to fold back on itself or sit at weird angles. It's something that would be trivial to correct if I could reach it, but hard for people without access to my sensory system to do, and if usually takes multiple tries; but for the most part it's been good.

Also relevant: For health reasons, you're supposed to replace cpap components -- mask, tubing, the water chamber that humidified the air, filters, etc -- regularly. Insurance pays for the replacements, some items every 3 months and some every 6.

The mask I use has been discontinued.

(fuckers.)

So, I had to go in to get fitted for a new mask. I mean, I could just have not ever replaced the mask part, but I don't want to breathe too much gross bacteria, and it does get cleaned regularly but still, if it's important enough that insurance pays for replacements...

So I went in, and they had two types of nasal pillow masks available. Option A had adjustable straps, gel pads on the cheek straps for comfort (where the old mask was just rigid plastic), and sat in front of the nose rather than going in, which made it easier to put on. So I went with that. Note: you try on a floor model (which does get disinfected between clients), but take home a new unopened one.

I get home, take it out of the package, and it reeks horribly. Some of it was new plastic smell, some of it was I don't even know what, but I had to wash it and let it air out. For two days. Still had a slight smell, but I needed to try it.

...did I mention that you have the option of switching to a different mask, but only in the first two weeks after you get it. I don't know what happens if you decide a month later that you don't like it, but I wasn't keen on finding out.

Anyway. Tried the new mask, and by the next morning my skin under the gel pads was burning, and my upper lip was sweaty from the plastic sitting on it. (The old mask stayed off my lip because it was held "up" by the tubing going up my nose. New mask didn't have that, therefore much sitting on lip.) I had my aides re-wash in case that helped. Spoiler; it didn't. The gel pads still burned, my upper lip was miserable, and every time my bed shifted (I have an alternating air pressure mattress to prevent pressure sores) the mask kept wanting to torque sideways. And if it got off enough to be blowing on my face and not up my nose, I couldn't get it back in place.

So I called to make an appointment to do a different mask. It's kind of stupid that I had to go in -- 25 minutes each way of driving for a 5 minute appointment -- but whatever. And in the meantime I stupidly kept using the new mask, forgetting that the old one was still functional. I only realized I could switch back to the old one on Monday night, when my appointment was Tuesday. At least I had one night of being sensible?

Option B is a very minimalist thing with non-adjustable straps. But it felt okay so I brought it home. The good news is it didn't stink horribly. But I discovered two things.

For one thing, a new mask feels different than a worn mask -- the straps are tighter, the edges are sharper. It's too small, even though the straps have some stretch to them. And this is compounded by the thing where comfortable for the first five minutes does not mean comfortable overnight. The straps are a somewhat coarse cloth, my nose hurt, and the whole thing just got worse and worse until I called my roommate in at like 2am to switch back to the old mask.

The other thing is that my nose is breaking out, probably from the bad new mask. There are cranky bumpy spots all over the cpap-contact plane, both on the sides of my nostrils and on the strip in between. Which means that "ridge in the soft plastic of the nasal pillows" feels like "razor blade, albeit not too sharp of one, being pressed against my nose".

I need to call them (booooo) to see if this mask has a larger strap option -- and if they'd be willing to fucking mail the damn thing; I'll even pay the fucking postage just so I don't have to go in -- but the "hurting my nose" thing I don't know what to do about. It may be that once my nose recovers from the bad mask, the new mask will be fine. It may be that I need to invent some sort of padding. It may be that it won't work st all. But ... i don't know if I will even know before the two weeks are up.

There is no option C. Well, there is, but option C is "use one of the nose pyramids and not be able to use iPad for anything". Which ... I do not want to resort to. But they only had those two masks for the nasal pillow option.;