"A Beautiful Addition to your Lifestyle"

[arkallen]

Early afternoon. I'm looking for a way into the healthcare facility where a script has been filled for a breathing machine. It's an older style house on a busy road with front steps that Bugger and I won't manage, so I ring the number on the appointment card. Apparently all I need to do is go round the block to find a back entrance. Once inside, via an awkward wire gate and narrow brick garden path, I find more steps! And so it seems the appointment will be conducted in the kitchen come waiting room. If it weren't for the fact that I can get this far with my walking sticks I guess we would have convened in the garden. I express my curiosity about a medical building that doesn't cater for wheelchairs, but the practitioner doesn't seem to share my surprise. I'm glad there are no other patients here to observe my volatile mixture of apprehension and cowardice.

"A beautiful addition to your lifestyle..." declares a brochure on the kitchen table. My curiosity is aroused. While my medical scientist is fiddling with an array of intimidating face masks I browse the literature. The pamphlet features a dashing middle-aged couple sitting immaculately on elegant furniture, in a home straight out of Vogue magazine. With rapt attention and face-splitting smiles the man and woman are examining a sparkling new breathing machine! Gosh! Breathlessly I read on, eager to share in their new-found joy. Meanwhile the technician works on her pile of tubes and leads, apologizing that the breathing machines we are going to trial will have to be set up on the floor, which I suspect is not best practice. Surreptitiously I type some phrases from the laughably inane brochure into my phone:

A beautiful addition to your lifestyle...
This elegant design package...
Its exciting array of features is the product of global research...
Its good looks will complement your bedroom decor...​

I note they don't mention the look of the mask and tubes, which would complement the decor of an operating theatre. It's a breathing machine, for goodness sake! Someone is being had.

But now it is my turn. A nose mask (I didn't know there was such a thing), is held firmly in place by half a wetsuit worth of rubber straps and velcro. "How does that feel?" What a stupid question. I just nod, although I'd like her to know it feels a lot like having your teeth flossed by an octopus. She presses an innocuous button and I am instantly and alarmingly transformed into a human balloon. Soon I’ll be an ornament for a jumping castle. I foolishly open my mouth to speak. This is a mistake, and as my lungs collapse I realise she actually works for the CIA. What can I confess to? Will she stop if I do? I will say anything. Anything! I plead guilty, “Enough! Stop! I admit it, I am a spy!” But right then the nose mask slips, creating some if the rudest noises I’ve heard since primary school.

More masks and wetsuits. More button pressing. More from the ‘exciting array of features’. (The pamphlet said nothing about water boarding!) “Some people find this takes a little getting used to” the secret agent murmurs in bland understatement. Translation: "You'll crack. They all do, sooner or later".

Late afternoon. A coffee shop, a family birthday party, dinner in my motel room. I keep my bravest face carefully fixed, not letting on that I've had a brush with an undercover operative, or that there is an instrument of torture waiting silently against the wall.

Late evening. The moment of truth can be postponed no longer. Alone at last in my motel room I am going to unleash the velcro octopus and press the on button by myself. I'm glad I am not at home. My first night of assisted breathing will be a private fiasco. Good night cruel world!

Very late evening. No, it seems privacy is not to be granted. Finding no power point remotely near the bedside, I consider various alternatives. Moving the bed? Too hard. Remaking the bed the other way around? There is a point across the room - but no, that's still too far. So I ring reception and come clean to a total stranger. I have a breathing machine. Can you lend me an extension cord? Certainly we can sir, but if you just ease the bed forward and look behind the mattress I think you will find..... Aahh, there it is. Good night cruel world.

Very, very late evening. I've left my glasses on. Off with the octopus and start over once again. Good night cruel world.

Neither early nor late. Grand old Duke of York time. The twilight zone. I am in the grip of an interminable, cyclic nightmare, playing from start to gruesome end with every black-box breath. My name is Bond, James Bond. I am being smothered by a gigantic sea monster. Throttled by an enormous squid wearing an extremely tight wet suit. This is truly horrid.

Extremely early. I take the damn thing off.

Minutes after extremely early. Damned if I'll surrender! KBO! Back on it goes.

Very early. Am I hallucinating, or is the obsidian sith lord in my bed? Darth Vader?

Early. Dawn in fact. Hey.... not so bad. I might even be asleep, but I'm trying not to think about that in case I wake myself up.

Rejoice!
(sort of)

 

[joelc]

Hang in there buddy! It does get better.

 

[abbas child]

Dear James Bond, aka Roderick,

Your letter this week is crying out to be published. I am picturing the entire scenario and wonder why you didn't invite your youngest daughter to enjoy the whole thing with you. You could have shared the squid (calimari?) and she could at least have gotten your glasses off for you. I can't read it without laughing... and yes, I'm so sorry. It wasn't actually fun in the least, I'm sure. Sigh. I hope since night #1, things have improved.
Blessings,
Ann

 

[flower]

you have way with word ,I hope you write. you made the whole thing very funny ,I could picture you batttleing . I hope you won the battle and now have tame it . thanks for the laugh.



been there,done that

 

[arkallen]

Well thank you all for laughing with me! 5 days on and the machine is working well, other than a change of mask that is sorely needed. In truth, even the second night was fine, but I couldnt really put that in my post - it would have spoiled a good story. Last night I slept without it because of the mask, and it was awful!

KBO!

 

[Ladyinn]

You DO have a way with words! This week's post has got to be one of the funniest, and truest, takes on this wonderful contraption that has ever been printed. I hope you know that you have made me laugh out loud and then send your post to a friend who is struggling to "adapt" to his sleep apparatus! So glad you are finding sleep better with it and can get a mask that fits to your liking soon.

Sleep does make abig difference in how we view things, doesn't it?

 

[abbas child]

I hope you get a new and comfortable mask tomorrow, Roderick--(today your time!)--you're right, however, about not including it becoming easier in your post. It is a relief, I'm sure...KBO and rejoice!

 

[Lavender Lady]

Roderick, you are way to funny at your own expense. I just love your writing techniques, you make our day. I am not looking forward to that aweful first night one day. Glad to hear you are adjusting.

 

[LauraW]

Ah, thank you, Roderick. Made me giggle inside (can't laugh cause it hurts my chest.....maybe a cold). You lightened my early morning!

 

[chriss]

Hi Roderick

Loved your description of the octupus and since I am the one putting it on for my husband it sometimes truly feels like I am wrestling one to get it on!

My advice, think about getting a few different types of masks to keep on hand. We started out with just one favourite type but now regularly rotate between three types. One we only really wear for meals as it is easier to get repeatedly on and off and one is better for sleeping and one is better to give the nose a break. The other thing is, we needed a modification to the wheelchair to have a basket fitted, which would hold the machine, the battery and the inverter to make it portable. Took a while so I wish we had started earlier.

Loved also your observation of how the venue access was poorly suited to the clients it was servicing. Typical

Cheers

Chris

 

[BarryG]

Great story! Reminds me why I named my machine "Ripley" after the heroine in the Alien movies. The octopus is just as good a description and the "facehugger" from those movies, thanks for the images.

 

[Jellycat]

Thanks so much for this. I am going to print it out and keep it for my mum. Last week at our neuro visit neuro decided to refer mum to respiratory team for tests & bipap. So we're on the waiting list for that. Hopefully only a couple of months. I will keep your post for that first night as I suspect we will need lightening up by then!

Glad to hear nights after were easier. Have you thought about writing a book?

 

[minnesota]

Browsing through the posts of the day, I play a game...."Which one did Roderick write?"...yes, I could look under New Posts for the day, but viewing the main list, with all of the posts, from the past few days, is more fun (easily entertained)....and ah, ha...on my 3rd hit of the mouse button, after reading about the opossum and lack of voice post-------------there it is............a christian, servant, soulful spirit, describing the indescribable with such prose and witty that we are drawn into the emotion of the moment with the faithful "we're all in this together" attitude. Thank you for writing! We have a caringbridge site here in the States where family and friends are kept "posted" on our family journey and I may have to ask for permission to borrow some of your words the next time I try to describe this "road". Blessings to you! Marie

 

[arkallen]

Browsing through the posts of the day, I play a game...."Which one did Roderick write?"...yes, I could look under New Posts for the day, but viewing the main list, with all of the posts, from the past few days, is more fun (easily entertained)....and ah, ha...on my 3rd hit of the mouse button, after reading about the opossum and lack of voice post-------------there it is............a christian, servant, soulful spirit, describing the indescribable with such prose and witty that we are drawn into the emotion of the moment with the faithful "we're all in this together" attitude. Thank you for writing! We have a caringbridge site here in the States where family and friends are kept "posted" on our family journey and I may have to ask for permission to borrow some of your words the next time I try to describe this "road". Blessings to you! Marie

Borrow by all means Marie! I like everything you said, and I do like the truth that "we are all in this together". Writing and sharing the journey on-line is such a great gift to us I think. Immagine doing this pre-internet.

I hope your mum does well with this and with all things she has to deal with.

Blessings!