Before bed each night, I think of this song as I put on my new CPAP mask. I had originally started out with the nasal pillow variety of the mask but that didn’t work for me. I sleep too much with my mouth open, so the nasal only mask just ended up filtering the humidified air through my nose, out my mouth, and onto my pillow. Not exactly effective.

The new mask is working much better, but it seems a little extreme to me. When I put it on, I find that I’m imagining myself as a fighter pilot or astronaut or some such thing. Why not make some fun out of it?

The good news is, I’m starting to get a decent night’s sleep. My apnea/hypopnea index with the CPAP machine is down to what is considered ‘normal’ range. Most of the time, this means I’m waking up feeling well rested. Since I spent the last week travelling, it isn’t really a great test of new system – other than to validate that I can indeed travel with it – it is easy to pack up and set up, such that it isn’t difficult to do for a single night. What we haven’t figure out yet is what we will do for camping. I can choose to go without – however, that means I am more likely to wake up feeling less well rested (not ideal for a multi-day trip).

Although the sleep doctor told me that the CPAP is non-addictive, but also will not cure me, I’m still kind of hoping that it will re-train my stomach and chest muscles how to breath deeply during sleep. I’m holding out some hope that the CPAP will be a temporary therapy rather than a permanent one – but of course, I’m also highly aware that this might just be wishful thinking. Until then, I’ll just have to continue imagining myself getting ready to fly off this planet every time I go to bed 🙂