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By Michael B. Wright
For many years, the Joy of my Life has been an insomniac. This has been coupled with having headaches almost every morning. We’ve tried every remedy from pills (either useless or too strong), listening to New Age music, listening to white noise machines, warm milk, wine, turkey meat, exercising to exhaustion, but nothing has worked. Finally, during a follow up to previous lab work, she mentioned it to our family doctor, who sent her to a local sleep clinic.
She was diagnosed as having sleep apnea, which is evidently a fairly common malady.
A week ago, we received a package, which we eagerly opened to find what initially appeared to be a highly sophisticated bong. It was her new CPAP unit.
I hate acronyms and in spite of my being the President and Chief Executive Officer of CAOOA (Citizens Against the Overuse of Acronyms), I had to find out what CPAP stood for. It means “Continuous Positive Airway Pressure”.
About the Air
The unit came with instructions much easier to follow than those provided by the IKEA home furnishings store. In fact, the instruction book they included was roughly the size of a Ken Follett novel. Once we discarded the sections printed in Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Español, Portuguěs, Nederlands, Svenska, Felsőkning, Norsk, Dansk, Suomi, Eesti, Ĉesky, Chinese and Vulcan, it was reduced to the size of a John Steinbeck short story.
A side benefit of the device is that it seems to have eliminated her snoring, which is similar to that depicted in our grandson’s description of his sister – “She snores like a beast.” I am more inclined to compare it to the sound of sand cranes flying overhead.
The first night she used her gadget, I woke up at 3 am thinking I was lying next to a WWI soldier wearing a gas mask. The second night, I was transported to that chaotic scene in the movie “E.T.” where everyone is wearing white hazmat suits and scrambling through a maze of plastic tunnels in a totally sealed, sterile environment.
I don’t think she has come up with a name for her CPAP unit yet, but it has become a welcome addition to our family. Incidentally, it has bonded with my pacemaker, “Sparky”.
If you have any appropriate names you’d like to suggest for Joy’s new companion, please forward them to micwrighthamo@gmail.com. WAIT! STOP THE PRESSES! She just handed this back after proofreading it for me prior to submission saying: “The name is Emily!”
