Hospital CPAP Issues

Recently, I had the misfortune of spending a few nights in the world's most expensive hotel. This may not sound like a misfortune, but this hotel I speak of was the hospital.

I ended up having a stroke which was probably related to one of my other chronic conditions. I have my sleep apnea well under control with my continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine. I wear it every time I sleep without missing a night.

This isn’t a problem until you make that unexpected trip to the hospital. In an emergency, you obviously don’t have time to pack a bag. This means you are going to have to rely on someone bringing your home CPAP to the hospital, or worse, relying on the hospital to provide you one.

Using the hospital's CPAP machine

I chose to use one of the hospital ones because the first night I was in the ICU and with limited visiting hours, I wouldn’t have been able to get mine from home brought to me. This was a big mistake. It started out OK; they gave me a machine which took a little while to get.

I don’t blame anyone for it taking some time. I know how busy respiratory therapists are in the hospital, and a CPAP is not a high priority when people are on vents. Something we should all be mindful of when requesting things from any hospital staff. To us, it may seem important because we only have to worry about ourselves, but the staff has a lot of patients to care for.

Not the type of mask I was used to

At home, I use nasal pillows instead of a face mask. I have never worn a face mask before because I don’t find them comfortable and easy to sleep in.

In the hospital, they only have full face masks. This thing was massive, or I have a small head, an answer I am not sure of after wearing that mask that covered almost my entire face.

Worsening power issues

Luckily, I was tired enough after the night I had that I could fall asleep pretty easily with the mask on. The issues started later that night. The CPAP would randomly cut off during the night when I was sleeping. If that has ever happened to you, it will wake you up. Trying to breathe through a mask with a CPAP that is not on is suffocating.

The issues only worsened during my stay to where it wouldn’t even stay on long enough for me to fall asleep. I let respiratory therapy know and said they did not have any other machines available to use, and they were going to try to find a power cord to swap out to see if that helped. They never came back, so I just slept without the machine the last night.

An outrageous bill

Normally I wouldn’t care, but when I read the statement for the hospital bill, if it was read right, I was charged for using a CPAP, which I think is a bit crazy, especially since I was charged $1400 for using it. That has to be more than the cost of the machine itself.

I’m sure insurance ate most of that bill, but the point is, I can’t stand the United States health insurance. But that’s another story. If cost is an issue for you, keep in mind you may get charged for using a hospital CPAP, so if you can, have someone bring your home CPAP in for you.