Where Did My Mask Go This Time!?

A few years back, when I first got my CPAP machine – along with all the other stuff of getting used to using it – I was trying to figure out...where did the mask go in the middle of the night!?

Excitement wears off

Like everything else new, getting a CPAP machine was pretty exciting for me. As people, we get "new stuff" and seem to take extra care of how we use it – for the first short while anyway!

This includes medical devices like a CPAP machine. We have that special feeling for the first few times of use. The possibilities are exciting, especially when it comes to being fully rested and full of energy – the possibilities are endless!

But then, the newness starts to wear off, and then comes the realization that this is not a quick fix. And those new gadgets, like a CPAP mask, sometimes quickly just become irritating!

No restrictions

Now I don't know about you, but I don't want to have anything restrictive around me when I go to bed! I don't want the clinging sheets and blankets or pajamas – absolutely nothing that I'm going to have to fight with in the middle of the night just to be able to sleep.

I don't remember how many weeks I used a CPAP with the mask. And yes, this was the full-face mask. I used to be a mouth breather and apparently needed to learn how to keep my mouth shut even while I was sleeping, which I now have successfully done – at least during sleeping!

Tangled up in tubing

The problem was that the full face mask soon became very restricting. And that tubing, it was just everywhere! I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night just to move the tubing so that I could roll over.

Once, somehow I got tangled up in that tubing. It was under one arm and behind the back of my neck and around the other arm and attached to my face by the mask Arg!!

As time went on, I could no longer keep the mask and all the tubing on me. Again, that restriction problem.

I never knew where I would find my mask

The first time I took the mask off while I was sleeping, not even realizing it, my husband woke me up. The mask was still blowing air; it had woken him up as the air was blowing directly on his face because I had lost it up by his head.

He handed it to me, then said, "Yeah, might want to put this back on or at least shut it off."

Well, it took a few times after that before I would also shut the machine off! I never knew where I would find the mask – in the bed or on the nightstand, or under the bed. So, it really helped sometimes when it was still blowing air because at least I could hear it.

Switching mask type

I do believe my husband woke me up more often because I'd taken the mask off (without shutting the machine off) in the middle of the night than he had ever woken me up for snoring or not breathing!

In the last month or so, I graduated, finally, from a full sleep mask to the nose pillows! Since then, I have not taken the mask off in the middle of the night to lose it somewhere in my sleeping vicinity! Still running or not.