Crashing and Burning round 3 (or is it 4?)

robysue wrote: Two of my current day-to-day stressors are the time it takes to properly take care of my BiPAP equipment .

Just curious, what are the daily requirements for taking care of your equipment? How long does it take?

DoriC wrote:

robysue wrote: Two of my current day-to-day stressors are the time it takes to properly take care of my BiPAP equipment .

Just curious, what are the daily requirements for taking care of your equipment? How long does it take?

I'm chronically disorganized so things take longer than they should. Here's my modest list of stuff that shouldn't take more than a few minutes, but usually eats about 10 minutes of my time. Ten minutes doesn't sound like much, but I've only got about an hour and a half between crawling out of bed and the time I need to leave for my 10:00 class or 10:00 office hours. And 30 minutes of that 1 1/2 hours is Light Therapy time. And please don't ask me why it takes so long, it just does.

Step 1) Pull the main hose off the machine and pull the pillows off the mask. Inspect the (two) barrel cozies for dampness due to drool. And if they're damp, I have to make a decision about whether to handwash the cozies (and use a back up pair that night) or hang them to dry and hope they're dry by evening. And regardless of whether I wash them or not, I have to get the pillow cozies hung up where the cat won't play with them. [And I'm using two barrel cozies because that seems to minimize rainout condensing from my own breathing into the pillows.]

Step 2) Take second set of pillows out of vinegar water bath if I forgot to do this the night before (which is common), rinse thoroughly, shake them out thoroughly, and put them to dry in a cat-safe spot.

Step 3) Make new vinegar water bath for the used set of pillows and dump them in. Take the cup back to bedroom to cat proof spot to soak for the day. And if I'm washing the cozies, they're done in a warm water bath with a tiny bit of dishwashing liquid. And they need both washed and rinsed.

Step 4) Take humidity tank out and look at the water level. If it's close to empty, I'll dump it and wash it out with vinegar water, rinse well and leave to dry in a cat proof place in the bedroom. If it's not close to empty, I'll examine the water carefully for anything floating in it. I started doing this after finding ants in the humidifier one time. I typically reinspect the water before going to bed if I'm not using fresh distilled water. If I find anything unauthorized in the tank, it's dump the water and wash the tank time.

Step 5) And finally make sure the data card is back in the machine---multiple times. I tend to pull the card and download the data while eating breakfast with the SAD light on. I really want it back in the machine before I go to work so that I don't wind up in a panic looking for the card at bedtime because I don't remember that I left it in the computer.