Good News

Hello again, I just want to say thanks to everyone who have read and or posted on here in the past month…I was really wondering if I just wasting my time…I’m glad that I’m not.

This is the third time that I have erased this blog and rewritten it and hopefully three times is a charm.  Originally I had added a part at the end talking about something that had happened to my oldest daughter with an actor that she has been following that had irritated me, but after a lot of consideration I have decided to take it out completely.

My entire purpose for this blog was for a soundboard for sleep apnea and not to complain, please excuse my moment of weakness and lets get back to what's important.  If you are curious about what I previously wrote please email me and I will explain it to you privately.

That said…I have good news…as most of you know my husband, Rick, who has given me permission to use his name, has severe sleep apnea and has been on a machine known as a bi-pap. 

Originally, when we first found out he had sleep apnea he was put on a c-pap, but the amount of air flow was not high enough and it ended up becoming a paper weight around the house. 

If your unfamiliar with how these machines and methods of purchasing them they are not covered by our basic health care system and as most companies that have benefits will cover it at 70-90%, you are still expected to cover the remaining 10-30%.

When we got the c-pap I was working for The Bank of Montreal and their benefits covered 90% of the $3000 they were asking leaving us with $300 to cover ourselves, of course, we couldn’t afford that and two of our amazing friends put their money together to buy it, it worked for a while, but eventually as Rick’s sleep apnea got worse the airflow was not strong enough and because he had used it, it was non-refundable. 

Lack of sleep led to more heart problems, excessive sleeping, and seizers.  When I couldn’t take it anymore I called his specialist and after assessing his condition she put him in the hospital.  She told us that if something wasn’t done soon that he was going to die...in fact her exact words were “if we don’t do something drastic and immediately sleep apnea is going to be the death of you.”

It was during his stay at the hospital that we found out that he had type 2 diabetes. The hospital staff read his blood sugar levels at 29…*laughs* I can bet that some of you are reading this shaking your heads thinking to yourself that I am over exaggerating, but I am not, when they admitted him and took his blood sugar the metre read 29…for those of you who are not familiar with these type of readings a normal reading is approx. between 5 and 7.

After his sugar levels were under control, he was comfortably fitted into a room and put on a bi-pap machine discovering it worked…for about four hours, they were satisfied.  Their theory was even though he didn’t sleep all night with it, due to pulling it off his face while sleeping, he did manage to gain a few hours of rest and some rest was better than no rest. 

This was awesome, but because I had quit the bank a year before this I no longer had benefits and we had to be able to buy the bi-pap outright which was close to $5000.  Knowing that this was a matter of importance our doctor petitioned the government and when they denied us she re- wrote back saying that unless they cover his machine for free they will keep him admitted, occupying a bed, indefinitely.  This got their attention and within a couple days they sent us home with a brand new bi-pap machine…which bring us to our current situation…are you still with me? *Laughs* the humidifier in it has stopped working making the machine virtually useless and because it is past its expiry date we have no other choice but to get a new one, which as you can probably guess, we can’t afford.

My dad is so amazing, I don’t know if I have ever really stressed this point, but he has been calling around the city for the past couple of days trying to figure out how to get us a new machine and by some miracle he did it…Rick will be officially fitted for a new machine no later than the 16^th of May…thank you God….he is so exhausted and I have seen him reverting back into the way he was before his week stay in the hospital so hopefully now he can get a little more rest and we can focus on other things.