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outsdrIt's been a busy week.
The town smells like sewage. No idea why, but it's gross. Actually, it's more of a sulfer and brimstone smell than sewage. Gross nonetheless.
We got a new digital plice frequency scanner at the newspaper. Two of them, actually, one for our office and one for the parent office. Got them last week. I had ours up and running in about 30 minutes. Funny how much we had been missing! Wednesday, I heard that the scanner in the parent office was a 'piece of crap' that was 'broken' because no one could figure out how to program it.
Seriously. Did they even read the manual? It was all in there.
I offered to do it for them, and Thursday, it came over to our office. In preparation, I went back to Radio Shack and bought the PC interface cable to make programming a lot easier... I programmed ours using the numeric keypad, which was tedious. The cable made it much faster and easier, once I had the software puzzled out.
I sent the scanner back, it worked perfectly, the owner was pleased, and everyone from our office made sure to let them know just how quickly and easily I accomplished what no one there was able to do. :D
-----
I got a call Monday from the Home Oxygen Health Sleepy People on Monday to let me know that my results were in, and i needed to come by to be fitted for a new CPAP machine. So, thursday afternoon I went in. I was interested to find out the results of my test, and if anyone made note of the kitty meowing in my face at night.
The biggest annoyance I have is that all their instruction manuals are done in Comic Sans. The horror.
The numbers weren't given to me as a copy, but what she showed me was a little frightening. According to my test, I snore at levels greater than 30 DBs. This doesnt tell me much, and is not nearly the rumbling jet-engine noises Andy claims I make.
She showed me the number 18, which is the number of times I stopped breathing. "During the entire night?" I asked in surprise. I was expecting maybe twice, if that many times.
"Per hour," she said.
Holy shit.
The other number she showed me was either 65 or 165, and it was my AHI: "When evaluating sleep apnea, the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) is used as an indicator of the severity of sleep apnea. The apnea-hypopnea index represents the number of abnormal breathing episodes (apneas and hypopneas) that occur in one hour of sleep. An apnea-hyponpea index of 5/hr. or less is considered normal; 5-14 mild obstructive sleep apnea; 15-29/hr. moderate obstructive sleep apnea; more than 30/hr. severe."
Dang.
I dont' have the specs on my machine, but it's a brand new one, and I got a full face mask this time, instead of the nasal mask. And I like it so much better already, although it's a little unwieldy to put on, I can't wear my glasses with it, and it has more straps than a bondage bordello.
It also springs leaks occasionally during the night, which wakes me up and I make adjustments to the way the mask is sitting and they go away. It hurts the bridge of my nose a little, and it's really difficult to sleep on my side wearing it. Actually, the only comfortable position while wearing it is laying on my back. Unfortunately, I can't sleep that way. I think I'm going to try a pillow that's not as firm as the one I normally use, in hopes in doesn't push the mask as hard into the side of my head.
Two things I noticed the first night- 1, I can't hear the cat outside my window meowing to be let in the house. Sorry, kitty, you're going to have to start waiting until morning, like you used to. (He can still wake me up to go outside, of course!) Secondly, I only got up once to go to the bathroom during the night, and that's when Jinx woke me up to go outside. I had hoped that the cause of my frequent night-time urination (nocturia, I beleive) was being caused not by a bladder problem, but because I wasn't sleeping deeply enough to ignore the not-really-urgent need to pee. Hopefully, that looks like the case.
I also found that I am waking up with the mask blowing very hard, and I'm holding my breath. So at least some of my breathing problems are not caused by my air intake being blocked - I'm not exhaling. Which seems really strange, and I'm not sure what the CPAP can do to treat that. Oddly, it takes a conscious effort of will to exhale in those situations. I don't wake up and immediately exhale in a panic - I lay there for 10-20 seconds before finally releasing my breath. Strange.
I'm renting the machine at $150 a month until my insurance deductible is met, at which point, they will sell me the machine and bill it to insurance. The mask is $250, I believe, and I'm not sure how much my monthly supplies (mask pads, etc.) will be. Even so, I'm going to be renting for awhile- my insurance deductible is $1,000 before they pay anything, and I haven't nearly reached that this year. And then, I have an additional $1,000 I have to pay at 80% coverage before they cover everything. And it all resets at the beginning of the year- I may just bite the bullet and pay for the entire thing right off the bat, as it will end up costing me less in the long run than renting it.
I've only used the machine for one night and a half, so I have no idea if it's done much good yet (other than the lack of peeing). In one month, I go back to have the SD card read to find out how I'm doing - it can monitor me as well, it seems. Probably in variances in air pressure.
-----
I am udderly in love with VAST's album "Nude". Amazing.
-----
I've been continuing the home improvement painting project all week. Annoyingly, it's also been rainy and cold all week, so I've gotten very little done, and I'm running out of time. I have half of the skirting left to paint, and all the patches and repairs to do as well. The painting is the time-critical part. The weekend I started, it was summer. The Monday following, it was fall. So, the rain has arrived (which is great, but why now?) and worse, the leaves are falling- and getting into and sticking to my paint. *sigh*
Once I have all the painting done (and I keep finding more to paint!) I'll build the patches to the skirting and put them in place. I also need to put some new insulation under there. But the fluffy pink insulation is relatively inexpensive, I think. Once all is said and done, I'll probably have spent about $300 and many hours on the project, but it will look nicer, and it's something that should have been done long before.
-----
On top of all that, Gilmore has been feeding me some more chapters to lay out this week, is going to call me Sunday, and promises that the end is in sight!
I have some more work to do for the furniture store. they're moving in to a new place. It used to be a hardware store, and luckily, there's still a lot of network cable already run. Unluckily, none of it is marked. So, I need to work out which cables go where, and plan out how to get them to where they're needed. Making some more money is always nice, but I'm seriously crunched for time right now. Not going to turn them away- they trust me, and I don't want them finding someone new to trust.
I also got to read two short fiction pieces by one of my favorite authors this week, and they were wonderful. One really dug into my head for awhile after I read it, which is always nice.
I think that covers my week. I have a column to write before the month is up, so I'm off to do that now. I'm also still trying to fix that damn iPod touch- I don't think my fingers are nimble enough to do it any more!
The town smells like sewage. No idea why, but it's gross. Actually, it's more of a sulfer and brimstone smell than sewage. Gross nonetheless.
We got a new digital plice frequency scanner at the newspaper. Two of them, actually, one for our office and one for the parent office. Got them last week. I had ours up and running in about 30 minutes. Funny how much we had been missing! Wednesday, I heard that the scanner in the parent office was a 'piece of crap' that was 'broken' because no one could figure out how to program it.
Seriously. Did they even read the manual? It was all in there.
I offered to do it for them, and Thursday, it came over to our office. In preparation, I went back to Radio Shack and bought the PC interface cable to make programming a lot easier... I programmed ours using the numeric keypad, which was tedious. The cable made it much faster and easier, once I had the software puzzled out.
I sent the scanner back, it worked perfectly, the owner was pleased, and everyone from our office made sure to let them know just how quickly and easily I accomplished what no one there was able to do. :D
-----
I got a call Monday from the Home Oxygen Health Sleepy People on Monday to let me know that my results were in, and i needed to come by to be fitted for a new CPAP machine. So, thursday afternoon I went in. I was interested to find out the results of my test, and if anyone made note of the kitty meowing in my face at night.
The biggest annoyance I have is that all their instruction manuals are done in Comic Sans. The horror.
The numbers weren't given to me as a copy, but what she showed me was a little frightening. According to my test, I snore at levels greater than 30 DBs. This doesnt tell me much, and is not nearly the rumbling jet-engine noises Andy claims I make.
She showed me the number 18, which is the number of times I stopped breathing. "During the entire night?" I asked in surprise. I was expecting maybe twice, if that many times.
"Per hour," she said.
Holy shit.
The other number she showed me was either 65 or 165, and it was my AHI: "When evaluating sleep apnea, the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) is used as an indicator of the severity of sleep apnea. The apnea-hypopnea index represents the number of abnormal breathing episodes (apneas and hypopneas) that occur in one hour of sleep. An apnea-hyponpea index of 5/hr. or less is considered normal; 5-14 mild obstructive sleep apnea; 15-29/hr. moderate obstructive sleep apnea; more than 30/hr. severe."
Dang.
I dont' have the specs on my machine, but it's a brand new one, and I got a full face mask this time, instead of the nasal mask. And I like it so much better already, although it's a little unwieldy to put on, I can't wear my glasses with it, and it has more straps than a bondage bordello.
It also springs leaks occasionally during the night, which wakes me up and I make adjustments to the way the mask is sitting and they go away. It hurts the bridge of my nose a little, and it's really difficult to sleep on my side wearing it. Actually, the only comfortable position while wearing it is laying on my back. Unfortunately, I can't sleep that way. I think I'm going to try a pillow that's not as firm as the one I normally use, in hopes in doesn't push the mask as hard into the side of my head.
Two things I noticed the first night- 1, I can't hear the cat outside my window meowing to be let in the house. Sorry, kitty, you're going to have to start waiting until morning, like you used to. (He can still wake me up to go outside, of course!) Secondly, I only got up once to go to the bathroom during the night, and that's when Jinx woke me up to go outside. I had hoped that the cause of my frequent night-time urination (nocturia, I beleive) was being caused not by a bladder problem, but because I wasn't sleeping deeply enough to ignore the not-really-urgent need to pee. Hopefully, that looks like the case.
I also found that I am waking up with the mask blowing very hard, and I'm holding my breath. So at least some of my breathing problems are not caused by my air intake being blocked - I'm not exhaling. Which seems really strange, and I'm not sure what the CPAP can do to treat that. Oddly, it takes a conscious effort of will to exhale in those situations. I don't wake up and immediately exhale in a panic - I lay there for 10-20 seconds before finally releasing my breath. Strange.
I'm renting the machine at $150 a month until my insurance deductible is met, at which point, they will sell me the machine and bill it to insurance. The mask is $250, I believe, and I'm not sure how much my monthly supplies (mask pads, etc.) will be. Even so, I'm going to be renting for awhile- my insurance deductible is $1,000 before they pay anything, and I haven't nearly reached that this year. And then, I have an additional $1,000 I have to pay at 80% coverage before they cover everything. And it all resets at the beginning of the year- I may just bite the bullet and pay for the entire thing right off the bat, as it will end up costing me less in the long run than renting it.
I've only used the machine for one night and a half, so I have no idea if it's done much good yet (other than the lack of peeing). In one month, I go back to have the SD card read to find out how I'm doing - it can monitor me as well, it seems. Probably in variances in air pressure.
-----
I am udderly in love with VAST's album "Nude". Amazing.
-----
I've been continuing the home improvement painting project all week. Annoyingly, it's also been rainy and cold all week, so I've gotten very little done, and I'm running out of time. I have half of the skirting left to paint, and all the patches and repairs to do as well. The painting is the time-critical part. The weekend I started, it was summer. The Monday following, it was fall. So, the rain has arrived (which is great, but why now?) and worse, the leaves are falling- and getting into and sticking to my paint. *sigh*
Once I have all the painting done (and I keep finding more to paint!) I'll build the patches to the skirting and put them in place. I also need to put some new insulation under there. But the fluffy pink insulation is relatively inexpensive, I think. Once all is said and done, I'll probably have spent about $300 and many hours on the project, but it will look nicer, and it's something that should have been done long before.
-----
On top of all that, Gilmore has been feeding me some more chapters to lay out this week, is going to call me Sunday, and promises that the end is in sight!
I have some more work to do for the furniture store. they're moving in to a new place. It used to be a hardware store, and luckily, there's still a lot of network cable already run. Unluckily, none of it is marked. So, I need to work out which cables go where, and plan out how to get them to where they're needed. Making some more money is always nice, but I'm seriously crunched for time right now. Not going to turn them away- they trust me, and I don't want them finding someone new to trust.
I also got to read two short fiction pieces by one of my favorite authors this week, and they were wonderful. One really dug into my head for awhile after I read it, which is always nice.
I think that covers my week. I have a column to write before the month is up, so I'm off to do that now. I'm also still trying to fix that damn iPod touch- I don't think my fingers are nimble enough to do it any more!
