52 Card Project 2021: Week 19: Morpheus
May. 15th, 2021 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI hope you all appreciate that in the service of art and this project, I have the courage to post one of the most unflattering pictures of me ever taken.
I received my CPAP machine this week, which I have dubbed "Morpheus," i.e., the putative God of Sleep. This week's card is based on Sir William Ernest Reynolds-Stephens' painting The Arms of Morpheus:
My vision for this card was not quite realized: I wanted to overlay a picture of me wearing the CPAP mask over the maiden in the painting. Problems: these cards are all in portrait orientation, whereas the painting is landscape, so I could only use a portion. I don't live with anyone who could take a full-length picture of me, and I don't have a tripod with a time-release button, so I couldn't take a full-length shot myself (and my arm isn't long enough to take it as a selfie). After much experimenting and cursing, I managed to snap this (as I said, immensely unflattering) picture of me, just a headshot selfie, which meant I could only replace the head, not the entire body. Ah, well, it is what it is.
In the foreground, you see the machine itself, as well as the mask I wear with it. In my first night's report, I learned that I have an average of 8 to 9 "events" an hour throughout the night. An "event" is when I stop breathing for at least 10 seconds. Given that sleep apnea tends to be inherited, and given that my dad died in his sleep, my reaction to this is "Yikes." The machine is a complication in my life, and I feel ugly AF wearing it, but I am more certain than ever that I made the right decision to start down this road.
I am also excessively annoyed, all over again, by the American medical system. I went into the machine equipment company's office to get the machine and I had to sign a financial contract for the rental. I asked what my monthly cost would be, and the tech told me, "That is governed under a contract between the machine equipment company and your insurer which is proprietary information and I cannot tell you that. You will find out the amount when you receive your first bill."
Note the ridiculousness of requiring me to sign a financial contract without having any idea of what I am going to be charged. [Edited to add: this is an overstatement, sorry. He could tell me the flat rate without insurance. But what my insurance company will charge me, he couldn't tell me.]
Getting used to the machine is going okay, but it is challenging. Air is continually blown into my nostrils. Breathing in is easy, but breathing out is more of an effort. After a while, you start to feel as if you have an imbalance of air going in versus air going out, but if you make the mistake of opening your mouth to try to draw in a deeper breath, the pressure feels like it increases tenfold. You just have to keep your mouth shut and try to relax and let the machine do its thing.
The score and the condescendingly chipper message at the top of the card is from the online app I use to get the report every day.
Morpheus
Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.
I received my CPAP machine this week, which I have dubbed "Morpheus," i.e., the putative God of Sleep. This week's card is based on Sir William Ernest Reynolds-Stephens' painting The Arms of Morpheus:
My vision for this card was not quite realized: I wanted to overlay a picture of me wearing the CPAP mask over the maiden in the painting. Problems: these cards are all in portrait orientation, whereas the painting is landscape, so I could only use a portion. I don't live with anyone who could take a full-length picture of me, and I don't have a tripod with a time-release button, so I couldn't take a full-length shot myself (and my arm isn't long enough to take it as a selfie). After much experimenting and cursing, I managed to snap this (as I said, immensely unflattering) picture of me, just a headshot selfie, which meant I could only replace the head, not the entire body. Ah, well, it is what it is.
In the foreground, you see the machine itself, as well as the mask I wear with it. In my first night's report, I learned that I have an average of 8 to 9 "events" an hour throughout the night. An "event" is when I stop breathing for at least 10 seconds. Given that sleep apnea tends to be inherited, and given that my dad died in his sleep, my reaction to this is "Yikes." The machine is a complication in my life, and I feel ugly AF wearing it, but I am more certain than ever that I made the right decision to start down this road.
I am also excessively annoyed, all over again, by the American medical system. I went into the machine equipment company's office to get the machine and I had to sign a financial contract for the rental. I asked what my monthly cost would be, and the tech told me, "That is governed under a contract between the machine equipment company and your insurer which is proprietary information and I cannot tell you that. You will find out the amount when you receive your first bill."
Note the ridiculousness of requiring me to sign a financial contract without having any idea of what I am going to be charged. [Edited to add: this is an overstatement, sorry. He could tell me the flat rate without insurance. But what my insurance company will charge me, he couldn't tell me.]
Getting used to the machine is going okay, but it is challenging. Air is continually blown into my nostrils. Breathing in is easy, but breathing out is more of an effort. After a while, you start to feel as if you have an imbalance of air going in versus air going out, but if you make the mistake of opening your mouth to try to draw in a deeper breath, the pressure feels like it increases tenfold. You just have to keep your mouth shut and try to relax and let the machine do its thing.
The score and the condescendingly chipper message at the top of the card is from the online app I use to get the report every day.
Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-15 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-15 07:31 pm (UTC)Naomi's surgery went well, and she is home recovering--still on medication but on the mend. Thanks for asking! In other happy news, her new book Chaos on Catnet is out now and doing well.