Catching My Breath

Jeez, peeps, it’s been a month since I’ve posted. Good thing this blog isn’t monetized or anything. A kind commenter left me a little prod about being so quiet, and I realized I should get off my ass and say something. Or…get ON my ass, since writing involves that position. It’s been awhile that I’ve been in a place to be able to pace and dictate or whatever.

I digress.

The first couple weeks of October, I don’t even have an excuse for not posting anything except perhaps laziness. Well, obviously laziness. No ‘perhaps’ about it. The last two weeks were kind of rough if I’m being honest. Politics caused me a lot of sleepless nights, and I wish I had it in me not to care about any of it, but I don’t. I often say the one silver lining to this disease is that I get to check out early, whereas the rest of you people have to stay and deal with this. I won’t be alive to see California slide into the ocean, or Handmaid’s Tale cease being fiction, or Auschwitz’s rebirth in my own goddamned country. There is a small grace in that. It still doesn’t prevent me having sleepless nights just absolutely freaking out over everything I cannot change and crying a lot. I wish the only thing I had to worry about was my actual disease.

The main thing going on in the last couple of weeks has been transportation problems, and breathing problems. I had an appointment to get my new AVAPS sleep machine, which I was very nervous about because it’s a whole new goddamned concession to this bitch of a disease, and I’d asked J to go along with me. Unfortunately, when we got there I was not able to get out of the fucking van because the automated door mechanism decided not to work. At all. We were used to it being a flaky bitch and sometimes not latching closed properly, but this was new. The door would not open all the way even with J pulling it open manually, so the ramp could not extend. And so I sat in the parking lot missing my fucking appointment while Jay feverishly tried to figure out how to free me. The door mechanism has been kind of flaky pretty much since I got it, and she’s been in for repairs twice already. J managed to get the door to open all the way, but he missed work the whole day instead of just a couple of hours while we took her in for an emergency appointment. The mechanics there were able to temporarily Band-Aid the problem.

By pretty much breaking my door.

Their fix to my door not automatically opening was to simply cut the cable that opened it and turn it into a manual door. Which is not, of course, a fucking fix. It was a preventative measure to keep the cable from snapping of its own accord and shearing apart the motor. We got a proper appointment later that afternoon to see what could actually be done, and after having my van for over an hour they explained that the entire mechanism would need to be replaced. Oh and now also the cable. Which, after the last time the van was in for service, we already knew replacing the assembly was going to be the next step which is why I had previously asked them to replace the entire assembly in the first place, and they never called me back. A month ago. So yes please can we actually REPAIR THE FUCKING VEHICLE.

This was all after getting pissed off that the mechanic would only talk to J and ignore me – because I’m just stupid dumb woman who doesn’t know anything about vans LOL. J very politely asserted that it was only MY name on the paperwork and registration and I would be the one paying for the repairs, so really he should be addressing me, not him (J is a champ). Thankfully, the mechanic did speak directly to me after that. But seriously. Dude wasn’t even old, he really ought to know better. They always do that; they will look at the paperwork read my name, and then turned to Jason and address him as Mr. Ross (THAT IS NOT HIS NAME EVEN) and explain what needs doing.

BITCH I AM SITTING RIGHT HERE AND WILL BE PAYING FOR THIS HI HELLO HOW ARE YOU. FUCKER.

Moral of the story is that we agreed the door assembly and cable need replacing. I kind of had to insist that we do that – the mechanic was seemingly trying to talk me out of it like, the door is working? (HI NO IT IS NOT BECAUSE IT IS A MECHANICAL DOOR THAT IS NOT FUNCTIONAL AT THIS TIME) The repairs will be expensive? (I HAVE A FUCKING WARRANTY) We got our van back, with the door still needing to be manually opened and closed before the rant will work, and the mechanic sets to ordering the parts that were needed and getting warranty authorization for repairs.

…A week later he calls to inform me that the warranty is declined for the repairs, because my contract does not cover those parts. He thought it sounded fishy and asked to see my actual contract. I have agreed the hell it doesn’t cover the freaking door, I paid $2000 for that fucking warranty it had better, and agreed to send him a copy. Turns out my fucking contract does not cover anything but the ramp itself, and the drive train. Literally nothing else. I paid $2k for them to not fix anything but a catastrophic failure THANK YOU ARIZONA MOBILITY FOR YOUR USELESS GODDAMNED SERVICE CONTRACT. So I am on the hook for $1000 repair. I have an appointment to go ahead with the repair on Friday, and then yesterday the ramp itself decided it doesn’t want to work either and refused to work for a moment. And then did work. Much like the door itself would sometimes decide to close and sometimes not. So I probably get to look forward to getting that repaired soon as well. Theoretically at least that will be covered. IN THEORY.

After missing the breathing appointment, I came to find out that the respiratory folks would actually have been able to come to my apartment in the first place to set up the machine. THIS IS USEFUL INFORMATION I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE. YOU KNOW, BEFORE. So we set up an appointment for them to come to me, and last Tuesday they delivered my new machine. It is, as promised, the most powerful noninvasive ventilator you can get. It costs $6400. If I can prove compliance – by which I have to use this machine at least four hours a day for 21 days out of 30 – then my insurance will pay for it outright. Otherwise I’m going to have to rent this thing for $700 a fucking months Covered by insurance, sure, but my co-pay is about to reset in January and I will be goddamned if I am paying for this fucking machine on top of everything else. I’ll save my precious out of pocket money for the $17,000 a month infusion meds that aren’t helping. I guess. So I just need to prove to Providence I am going to use it when I sleep. Pinky promise.

That’s turning out to be much easier said than done.

This machine is indeed much more powerful than my old CPAP was. Too powerful. It’s kind of like breathing from a turbine engine. It has a ramp function, where it will slowly turn the air up, but even that is not exactly comfortable. By which I mean it is genuinely hard to breathe with that machine on. I can’t take a little bit of air, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. If I try to breathe shallow to prevent the machine inflating my lungs like balloons, it freaks out and tries even harder. Eventually I have to pull in a huge lungful of air, which the machine helpfully cuts off the airflow after a second and I have to breathe through my mouth to catch my breath entirely. I have fallen into a routine of putting the mask over my face and then just checking out the Internet or watching TV or something for an hour or so before bed to try to get used to it before I am actually attempting to sleep. Like, distract myself and trick my body into being cool with my new overlord breathing on my behalf. It’s not really working. The only way I’ve really been able to sleep with it is if I medicate myself either with Ativan or Ambien first. Even then, I wake up fairly often. I find myself constantly checking the machine to see if I’ve hit four hours of use yet so I can pull the mask off and sleep comfortably.

This machine has taught me what my actual limit for life is.

As I lie in bed struggling to breathe, I know that when this becomes my existence, and not just an artificial effect produced by a machine, I am going to be done. I cannot live that way. It is abjectly miserable, and it is impossible to do anything else when you are struggling so hard just to get air into your body. That is not going to be a life worth living. When the machine is doing my breathing for me, and there is nothing in my brain except an animalistic fight for control over the oxygen coming in and out of my lungs, that will be the time to say goodbye. Because that is not a life.

For now though, I have the ability to pull the mask off. I counts down the time until four hours has passed, when I can pull the mask off and sleep properly. For now life is still great. I have ideas and plans. Including a very important plan to call the respiratory specialists and see if there is some adjustment that can be made to make me a little less abjectly miserable when I’m trying to sleep. To make sleep possible at all without taking potentially addictive medications. Friday I will take the van in and try to get it limping along for a little while. I literally just needed to last a couple of years. Sunday, I get to do something really really awesome I am super excited about. I have things to do. People to see. Life to live.

One breath at a time.