It is fire season here in the west. We have fires burning all around us. When the prevailing winds are from the NW we get smoke from Idaho and Oregon fires; from Wyoming in the NE where parts of the Grand Teton NP are closed. When last I wrote, we had a major burn just a few miles to our west that really put visible smoke in the air. But for a few weeks we've had a reprieve. The air has been beautiful, mostly in the "green category". However, the reprieve is over. We have a fire up Logan Canyon near the Beaver Mountain Ski Resort (voluntary evacuations from that area). I used to bike that canyon. In the early mornings the colder--heavier--air from the mountains would whistle down that canyon and you would swear you could pedal no farther. After you'd biked up 20 miles or so, and the day began to heat, the wind would change direction and be in your face on the way down! It often seemed as if there were no justice. Today the canyon winds have filled our valley with smoke. Once again we cannot see the surrounding mountains.
And just when I was starting to feel good lung function again. When I last left off it was with a prescription for some aureomycin. The pharmacy where I get the prescription filled said that they wouldn't recommend taking this antibiotic because it had an additive effect with some of the medication I was on. I was ready to pooh-pooh the idea until Jan said they wouldn't have made the statement unless there was strong evidence of the effect. So I called the heart failure clinic and they said, we'd rather you didn't take that one. So I called the prescribing physician's nurse and told her what had happened and she got me a scrip for some amoxicillin which does not interact with any of my current medications. She also said thanks for the information which I took to mean that such an effect was unknown to the prescribing doc. In any case it was all academic since I felt that I was getting better without any antibiotic, and, in fact, I have not taken it. Let's chalk up one for my crummy immune system. But today I am hacking and can feel my lungs burning. We have some wind outside as I type this. Hopefully, it will clear the air before I get back in the situation I was in a few weeks ago.
I saw the sleep doc today. This is a mandatory appointment where Medicare finds out whether I am actually using a piece of (new) equipment (the BIPAP machine) they are paying for. I am. During all sleeping hours. The new machine, as with most devices these days communicates, with a server somewhere via wi-fi and the doc simply has to download the information about me. Someone is truly watching over me. Well, not so much probably. But the data are there for the doc to read. And read he did. He reported to me that I am averaging 1.1 apneas or hypopneas per hour, well below clinical significance (5 per hr). Very good news, indeed. Recall that my baseline rate--unmasked--was 24 per hour. Thus, the new mask which covers nose and mouth really works well. And I find it is not much to tolerate. He doesn't want to see me again for a year.
An aside: this week I bought a travelling O2 concentrator. They are expensive and the medical equipment company has no arrangement with Medicare on them because the pay out rate is small enough that they wouldn't recover the cost of the device. Such a purchase allowed me to take back the rental concentrator we were keeping in SLC (at $100 per month!). Medicare justifiably only pays for one of these which we have here at home. It made sense that in a couple years I would reach the cost of the portable device, which also was easy to pack and take with us. It has its own rollers and is about the size of a briefcase. And it solves the problem of airline travel since this device could easily store overhead on a plane. (Medical devices do not count against one's total luggage.) In any case I've got one. And the sleep doc says you are doing so well that you might want to experiment in a few months going without O2. I may have just bought an expensive piece of equipment that I may not need. He also said that they can loan me an oximeter that connects to my BIPAP so that I can measure O2 concentration over night. I will do this in a couple months and we'll see. I should be able to do an ABA with it. Look at the O2 saturation with and without supplemental O2. Definitely worth a look.
So, back to life its ownself some more...
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