Of Sleestaks and CPAP's and other news...

While I was in the hospital over Christmas, the nurses noticed that my blood oxygen level was fine during the day but went down a lot at night.  After several appointments and 2 sleep studies, I came home with a brand new CPAP machine yesterday... I was actually pretty excited about the CPAP because I have had several friends get them and most of them say that it makes an amazing difference and that they have more energy and generally just feel better.  I've always considered myself lucky that I never had to go thru the braces/headgear stage when I was younger.. but that is catching up with me now.  I'm not sure how I really look with the mask on, and I'll never post a picture on here either, but I imagine myself looking like a sleestak from the original "Land of the Lost".  Very attractive!

I got it all hooked up last night and thought it was set up just the way that the tech set it up to show me how it worked.  Had several moments of panic when I started breathing and it felt like air kept being pumped in too fast and I couldn't breathe it out fast enough.  I turned it off twice, and started it again, thinking that maybe I was just breathing a little weird from nervousness about something new and wondering if I would be able to sleep with it.  Eventually, I broke down and read the instructions but they didn't say anything about this.  After looking more closely at the mask, I noticed that there was a cap over the vents under the nose.  Took that out and all of a sudden it worked just fine.  Funny thing is that there is nothing in the instructions that say anything about that so most people must just figure it out...  Anyway, after that I slept great.  Woke up once and then slept in until 10:00!  Must have scared my cats though.  Usually they both sleep on the bed--one of them curled up in my arms and the other by my feet-- but I didn't see either one all night.  Doubt that they have ever seen sleestaks before-- they are a little young for "Land of the Lost".

And other news-- I bought a new car on Thursday!!!  I don't have it yet and won't for about 2 weeks but it is on it's way here.  2010 RAV4 in Pacific Blue.  Toyota has so many incentives going right now that my car payment ended up being less than what I had been paying.  How could I pass that up?  I'll write more about it and post pictures later when the car actually gets here.