CPAP adventures

Kathy Likes Pink asked me for an update on my sleep apnea treatment. I have found a couple of masks that work well for me and I have been getting good sleep. My favorite one is the Resmed Activa, which looks like this:
Believe it or not, this thing is pretty comfortable. It's made for people who thrash around in their sleep, which includes moi, and it keeps a seal whenever I turn. It's hard to explain if you've never worn a cpap mask, but this is the best one for me.

The other one I like, for those special times when I want air blowing directly up my nostrils, is the Puritan Breeze:


Why does this man look so happy? It's because he knows he will live in the Star Trek future as a Klingon. It's certainly not because he loves wearing a cpap mask.

Although the apnea is being successfully treated, I'm still feeling kind of tired. This may be because of the restless legs (which I've been calling "the jimmy legs" since the Jon Stewart riff), known at night as periodic limb movements of sleep. I know my last post was about new health problems being made up by drug companies, but this really is a disorder that mucks with people's sleep. So yes, I am taking one of the Parkinson's meds for it. My neurologist said that the gambling side effect is rare, and since I take it at night, I shouldn't worry about it. If I start leaping out of bed at 3 am and heading for the track, he wants me to call him. I think it would more likely be online gambling at 3 am, but I'll call him either way.

So that's me and my sleep disorders. I'm not really anxious about these problems, I feel good and hopeful now that they're being treated. And, if anyone from my previous jobs is reading this, I've been on time to work since I started cpap.

It's not hypochondria, it's anxiety

Shannon Brownlee had a brilliant opinion piece in the Washington Post today about the modern practice of scaring people into worrying about their health and being tested and treated for a myriad of conditions, some of which are fabricated by drug companies. Here's a quote:

In our desperate desire for protection against the ambiguous and unseen nature of disease, we have allowed our physicians and the drug industry to medicalize everything from heartburn to heartache. We want answers, even when there are none. We look to medicine to bring relief from the terrible unknowns of aging and its inevitable losses, even when the answers have been manufactured to sell a drug.

It's certainly something I fall prey to. I actually have some medical conditions that do need treatment, but I worry much more about symptoms than I need to. My mother had a serious, disabling stroke when she was quite young, and that contributes to my anxiety, but it's not as if I can prevent my own illnesses by worrying about them in advance...

Roget's tragedy

I just read a Reuter's Health story about Peter Mark Roget of the eponymous thesaurus fame. If you've ever had mental illness in your family and wondered what it might have been like in the days when there were no good treatments, this story will really touch you. It makes me very sad to think about someone dealing with these issues and the hopelessness he must have felt. His way out of the pain was to make lists of words. You could say that obsessive-compulsive disorder was his own form of mental illness, but it sounds like a basic coping strategy to me, given his situation. An excerpt from the article:

His mother suffered dark depressions and tried to dominate his life. His sister and daughter had severe mental problems, his father and wife died young and a beloved uncle committed suicide in his arms.

So what did Peter Mark Roget, the creator of Roget's Thesaurus, do to handle all the pain, grief, sorrow, affliction, woe, bitterness, unhappiness and misery in a life that lasted over 90 years?

He made lists.

The water tastes funny

To whom do I complain? It worries me slightly, because in the wake of the news that most drinking water contains certain undesirable elements, I ordered myself some of this here Shenandoah Spring water. I hope it won't taste funny.

It occurred to me the other day that I have been doing nothing but nothing photographical or artistical lately. Since this occurred to me while taking a picture of a Canada goose on the roof of the Hampton Inn (will share soon), that's not so bad. I think I just haven't been very noticey. Sometimes I just trudge around without really looking at my surroundings. Usually I'm a "universe in a grain of sand" type person -- I notice small things around me and find them interesting. I don't know what the hell's going on with me. I've been watching a lot of tv shows, despite the fact that I turned off my cable and gave away my tv. If you're wondering how I'm watching tv without these implements, please allow me to invite you into the modern era. Also I would like to say that as soon as I gave my tv away, I wanted a new tv and cable and a dvr. Perhaps that's a sign that I just wanted an excuse to buy a new tv. For I have been coveting the LCD flat panel of joy.

I would like to be reading more. Although I have been reading for the Bookfest. Again, I don't know what my problem is. I think I'm adapting to life with sleep apnea, still. I wouldn't have thought it would take so long. I seem to be feeling my age right now, which causes cognitive dissonance, as emotionally I feel like I'm around 12 most of the time. Which is not to say that I'm not emotionally mature, it's more to say that I'm neurotic and continue to worry about what people think, mostly when I'm communicating with them. Which is why I love blogging, I have no idea what people are thinking unless they tell me and so far people have been kind.

Since getting chewed out whenever the hell that was, I've been a bit extra-sensitive. I'm feeling like I should just keep my mouth shut. Except with the dogs and cat, they're very accepting of whatever I might say, and also they like my singing. Also, they like my stinky clothes. Is this unconditional love or just the inability to use language with which they could disagree, argue, reprimand and demand, etc? It feels like lurve.

And speaking of unconditional love, thank you for putting up with my sentence fragments.

Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear, and the Festival of the Book

The 2008 Virginia Festival of the Book kicked off yesterday and if you didn't make any sessions then, you might want to go to their website and check out the current and upcoming sessions. Changes have occurred, so if you haven't checked the site for a while, it's worth doing again.

Naturally I would like everyone to come to the "Crime Wave: Murder, Murder Everywhere" session (8 pm tomorrow, March 28, at the Albemarle County Office Building) to hear and see my new favorite, Jacqueline Winspear, author of the "Maisie Dobbs" series of mystery novels. I'm telling you, you will love these books if you don't already. (If you do already love them, you have no excuse for not showing up and if you don't I will track you down and... wait, I'm not going to do that.)

Winspear's most recent book, An Incomplete Revenge, continues to follow Maisie's development as a "psychologist-investigator," as she calls herself. This job title is a clue to how different these novels are from most mysteries. Set in post-WWI England, the time period is critically important to these books. England was still reeling from the effects of the Great War years after its conclusion. The psychological scars ran deep and were motivating factors for all kind of behavior, and of course because these are mysteries, for criminal behavior. Because Maisie is part psychologist and interested in motivation, the reader sees more deeply into the minds of the criminals and understands them as human beings in a way rarely found in other mysteries.

I've blogged about Winspear and the Bookfest because I was invited to, and I have been very grateful for the opportunity, not least because I have discovered a wonderful mystery writer whose future career I look forward to following. One of the most wonderful aspects of the Bookfest is exposure to new-to-you authors. Certainly seeing your old favorites is very enjoyable, but I urge you to take a chance on sessions that interest you topically. You'll discover some fresh faces and voices who contribute to your lifetime of reading.

See you at the Bookfest!

Birds of a Feather, the 2nd Maisie Dobbs novel

As you may know, I'm blogging about Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs mystery series. I found that the second book, Birds of a Feather, got off to a fast start, really grabbing my interest right away. I think it helped that I already "knew" Maisie from the first, eponymous book, and was interested in finding out what was happening to her "now."

The book is, naturally, very well-written and the mystery unfolds seamlessly and gradually. It is really a page-turner. Like the first book in the series, the mystery revolves around an incident that has its roots in the First World War. These books have a strong sense of place and time. Although I knew that WWI had a huge impact on Britain, I didn't realize how long-lasting that impact was. I can't imagine living surrounded by all that sorrow and loss. Of course in those days, there was not much that could be done medically for the wounded, who were encountered everywhere.

This second book is not as didactic as the first, because the reader is already grounded in the scene and times. The character development is wonderful. Maisie's progression as a private investigator is interesting, as is her novel approach for solving crimes. Maisie depends not only on concrete evidence and clues, but also on intuition and maintaining a calm mind so that she is open to whatever occurs. I continue to find this unusual and somewhat mesmerizing. I haven't encountered any other detectives who meditate.

All in all, a quite enjoyable read. I'm now in the middle of An Incomplete Revenge, Winspear's latest Maisie novel, and enjoying it immensely. I'm sorry not to be able to get to the 2nd and 3rd books in the series before the Bookfest, although I have them on my bookshelf and will be reading them later. If you're a mystery fan, I think you'll enjoy these books. I would also recommend them to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.

And I would be remiss if I didn't remind you all that the Bookfest starts this week. Jacqueline Winspear is part of a panel called:

Crime Wave: Murder, Murder Everywhere

Fri. March 28th, 8:00 PM

David Ignatius (Body of Lies), Margaret Coel (The Girl with The Braided Hair), James W. Hall (Hell's Bay) and Jacqueline Winspear (An Incomplete Revenge).

Location:Albemarle County Office Building
401 McIntire Road

Please come! I think it will be a most enjoyable session.

A Maisie (Dobbs) Googlism

maisie is off on an adventure

maisie is much annoyed

maisie is hanging in there as long as she can

maisie is fortunate enough to be in a home where someone is home with her all the time

maisie is excited because she thinks she might get to work in one of the film studios

maisie is more like me than any other character i've written

maisie is a large friendly tortoiseshell

maisie is also dealing with another emotional roller coaster ride

maisie is not a quitter

maisie is the main character

maisie is from england

maisie is used as a pawn in the power games of the adults who surround her; her perception of their corrupt lives leads her to an odd and disconcerting maturity

maisie is lonely