May 3, 2019
Dear Everyone:
I did get my dryer fixed a couple of weeks ago.
It made me realize that having laundry machines inside the home
is less of a convenience and more of a luxury.
I’m thoroughly enjoying washing and drying things whenever it
suits me. Definitely
luxurious.
In the meantime…
I’ve already mentioned the fact that I have been prescribed a
Continuous
Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine to blow air up my nose all night
long. This is to treat
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA).
In my case, I use a “Nasal Cushion” that fits over the nose, rather than
the larger full Face Mask.
We’ll call mine a “Mini Mask”.
What holds it in place?
Several things.
There’s the frame, which is made of some kind of flexible material
rather similar to the soft “sleeve” in which you might carry a laptop
computer. This part fits
over your face and is held in place by a “headgear”, which is made of a
softer material with some stretch to it and which fastens with
hook-and-loop strips. In
other words, “Velcro”.
The headgear fits over the head, with straps going behind the back of
the neck, behind the upper part of the head, and a strap that goes over
the crown of the head. There
is an illustration that comes with the headgear, showing the correct way
to wear it. The head in the
illustration is clearly male.
In fact, all of the illustrations are male.
Pictures of the headgear on a manikin head, also male.
The manufacturer even offers a video on its website with a live
model fitting the headgear over his (male) head.
Clearly, the headgear is made for a man, with little or no hair, who
sleeps standing up, doesn’t wear glasses
and lives alone.
Also, the designer and I have different opinions on where my ears
should be located. In other
words: It’s not made to fit
me.
The manufacturer will claim that it’s “One Size Fits All” because of all
the Velcro fasteners that can make parts of it larger and/or smaller.
Here’s a Valuable Truth:
One of Murphy’s Laws states:
“If it says ‘One Size Fits All’, that means it doesn’t fit
anybody.”
I tried an Internet
Search for “CPAP headgear for women”.
What I found was much the same thing, only done in pink.
Not exactly helpful.
The real problem is that, unlike the male models, many women have more
hair than the average male.
In fact, my hair is roughly shoulder length.
The technician who visited my home, briefly, said that the headgear
would easily accommodate “long” hair.
As long as you like it pressed against the back of your head and
neck.
I don’t. In fact, one of the
reasons I decided to let my hair grow was so that I could pull it back
from my face and up off the back of my neck.
So what to do with all that hair?
I tried brushing it up and “threading” it through the space between the
crown and back portions of the headgear.
Singularly unsuccessful.
Also, enormously frustrating.
Which is not conducive to relaxing at bedtime.
The manufacturer wanted it to be “One Size Fits All” because it’s so
much easier to mass produce.
I finally realized that it didn’t need to be “One Size Fits All”, it
just needed to be One Size Fits Me.
In the 1985 movie,
Silverado,
Stella (played by
Linda Hunt) told
Paden (played by
Kevin Kline) that
“The world is what you make of it, Friend.
If it doesn’t fit, you make alterations.”
I’ve been doing that all my life.
Ever since I learned to handle a needle and thread, I’ve been
altering things to fit me.
Rather than going over the head, I needed the headgear to go around the
head, from side-to-side, where I could fasten it, thus negating the
“threading” of the hair through the upper loop.
I decided to try some alternatives.
The local pharmacy and supermarket chains all carry a number of likely
elastic hair bands for just a few dollars.
A narrow elastic hair band going around the back of the neck
worked rather well. This
eliminated the problem of “your ears are in the wrong location”.
Another, wider band around the back of the head seemed to work at first.
But after a few nights, it began to creep upwards, thus causing
the “Mini Mask” to slip.
This negates to whole point, which is to hold the “Mini Mask” in place
through the night.
Back to the original headgear, on which I have tried a few alterations
involving some Velcro of my own.
(Every good sewing basket contains at least some Velcro.)
So far, the results can best be described as “mixed”.
As anyone who has ever gotten Velcro caught in her hair can
attest, the situation will not remain tenable.
As for the original head gear, The Powers That Be have ordained that you
can only get a new one every six months.
In the meantime, I ordered one separately from the usual
replacement protocol. It
cost $37. No doubt, because
of the labor involved in sewing many little straps together into one
not-very-big ensemble.
In any case, I have that as a fallback solution.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to experiment with different
“alterations” until I find one that works better than all the others.
It’s a Work In Progress.
Love, as always,
Pete
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