Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!125!7!Tom.Keller
From: Tom.Keller@f7.n125.z1.fidonet.org (Tom Keller)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Power sources
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Date: 8 Aug 90 21:05:19 GMT
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In a message on 23 Jul 90, Floria Antin (1:109/304) writes:
 
>> spend a night away from home.  I live in *TERROR* of a power
>> failure in the mmiddle of the night.
 
> Isn't it possible to have a back up generator so that the 
> equipment will receive power even if there is a power outage?
 
   Possible?  Yes.  Affordable?  No.  The smallest self-starting
generator set I can find has about 100 times the capacity I need,
and prices in at about $1600.00.   That's about $1590.00 more than
I can afford.  Hell, I'm damned lucky I live in California.  Medi-Cal
may not be the best health insurance in the world, but at least they
pay for my CPAP lease!  Otherwise, I'd not have that either (and I'd 
either be dead, or totally dysfunctional and better off dead).
 
   My apnea is pretty bad -- during my last test, I suffered 834 apnea
events in 7.6 hours.  According to the Dr., when I sleep without my
CPAP unit, I breathe approximately 48% of the time, and my blood
oxygen drops to something like 52% of what it SHOULD be.
 
   According the to sleep disorder specialists I have seen, unlike
many apnea sufferers, weight loss will have little effect upon 
my condition.  Apparently I have a small throat and a very large
tongue (my parents always *TOLD* me my big mouth would get me into
trouble someday! (-:).
 
   I should also point out that the Doctors tell me that a power
failure is not all that threatening.  Apparently, because I have
been under treatment now for well over a year, while it would be
uncomfortable, a night, or even a few nights without my CPAP would
not (probably) be fatal.  So my *HEAD* knows I'm at no real risk.
But my *BODY* and my *PSYCHE* refuse to believe it!  I cannot sleep
without that CPAP unit!  I just can't.  
 
tom

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