100 Hours Under the Mask

I am guardedly optimistic that using the CPAP machine is doing something positive for my sleep. The problem continues to be one of adjusting to the mask throughout the night. And one more things (as Steve Jobs will NOT be saying at the Macworld Expo this year): I am taking a drug called Lasix as part of my daily pharmacological cocktail. Its job is to keep the fluids from building up inside me, and the means by which it does its job is my making my bladder very active. Some folks report a lessening of nocturnal bladder emptying, but Lasix doesn’t allow for that.

As a matter of fact, one day I realized that the Very Smart People who give names to drugs have named every pill I take in this pseudo-Nordic ur-code. Imagine the guy who says “Imagine a world where . . . ” with the big rumbly voice on the movie trailers saying “I AM”, followed by the name of a drug you might be taking and closing the sentence with “RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!”

OK, ready, everyone?

“I AM LASIX, RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!”

“I AM COREG, RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!”

“I AM ALDACTONE, RULER OF THE UNIVERSE!”

Of course, the one that doesn’t work in my pharmacopia is BABY ASPIRIN.

Anyway, sometimes it can be a struggle when I awaken with an urgent need caused by LASIX, RULER OF HE UNIVERSE, but I’m groggy and under the mask. The wind is howling under that mask as I struggle to disengage myself from the tubes which tether me to an 8 foot radius around the TV table next to the bed where my CPAP sits. No accidents to report, but plenty of comedic possibilities.

I’m just thankful they’re all pills. When all of this cardiac excitement started back in May I had to have Jan give me a shot of something called Lovenox (I AM LOVENOX . . . ) which had to be administered by my long-suffering spouse my means of shots to the abdominal wall, 3 times a day. It MUST be love when you have to do that to your partner.

Getting back to CPAP for just a second, I am sleeping deeper, the Lasix urges notwithstanding. I even take naps with the machine on.

And there’s a funny name for those of us who sleep under masks. We are called Hoseheads.