I’m on CPAP - please help me survive hell

[LittleSpyintheSky]

I’m on CPAP. Everyone is doing their best to keep me alive but I feel traumatised. Family and friends are still asleep. Is anyone there to talk to me?

Sending you best wishes xxx💐

Another sending best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Best wishes op, I'm here all night

I can't sleep so I'm up for chatting if needed

@LittleSpyintheSky so glad you are feeling a bit better. Re the lady who is angry and not coperating with staff, sometimes if your oxygen saturations are really low, it can make you act a bit strange, add in the dexamethasone and she might honestly not have a clue how she is acting. It can be wierd seeing people so poorly not accepting the help they need

@Abcdecat

Sending my best wishes and also a little tip - there’s more than one type of CPAP mask available, one that goes over the nose and mouth, then a bigger one that covers nearly the whole face.

My patients often find the bigger one more comfortable, especially after having the smaller one on for a while (which can dig in at the nose) You might know this already but I always try to offer this as it can make a difference (even if small).

I hope you are being well looked after, and as a critical care nurse I say - please tell your nurses if your feeling uncomfortable, anxious or anything, nurses may be busy but we will always do our best to help and there’s many things that can be done to help manage symptoms. Other than that a lot of my patients like to watch some TV/ movies to pass the time, every critical care unit I’ve worked in has had some form of TV/laptop that patients can use so this should be an option too.

Best wishes xx

ABC you are a heroine. All of the staff on the front line of this are absolute hero’s. I am a health care worker in New Zealand and fortunately we are not facing what HCW in other places are facing. You have the admiration of all your colleagues, here on the other side of the world. 💐💐

As for you OP, hang in there, you will get better. Terrible things bring out love - I hope you feel that love and care💐💐

Dear @LittleSpyintheSky I'm so sorry you're going through this. How are you doing tonight? I am on respiratory wards a lot as a patient so know all about CPAP and know the noise and everything about it is so scary but it does such an amazing job. I really hope you're able to come off it soon with better O2 sats. A horrible thing for you to be going through..sending a hug.

I’m in a bad place . I was the one who totally lost it earlier. Shouting and crying. I still haven’t really slept. They promised they would keep doing my blood pressure but every time I have fallen asleep, having my blood pressure taken yet again has woken me up. I’m so exhausted.

They promised they wouldn’t keep doing BP

The pipe in my CPAP has also flown out on its own - about 4 or 5 times

Oh lovely, that sounds tough. Can we distract you?
I thought that poem was lovely. And the book list. I don’t know how I would have managed this long without my audio books. Podcasts are great, too. What kind of stuff do you like? My favourite genre is crime ... fiction and fact.
I hope you get some rest tonight x

You poor thing😢. Hope you feel a whole lot better very very soon.

I'm sorry OP, I hope you're sleeping now.

I loved Wolfe Hall and Bring up the Bodies. Hoping the third one is in my Xmas stocking .

Mumsnetters have been a lifesaver for me. Not a viper in sight xx

Hello, sending warm thoughts of hugs and happy days and hoping you are getting a bit of peace for a snooze x

@WhatTimeDoYouCallThis

Hello, sending warm thoughts of hugs and happy days and hoping you are getting a bit of peace for a snooze x

Unfortunately not sleeping. But thank you for calling in 💐

Hello, hope you're doing OK and managing to rest, if not sleep. Lots of good wishes coming your way. 💐

Hi hun, I’m here at 3am-ish if you need someone to vent too. You are doing amazingly and don’t give up hope. I don’t know much about you but suggest listening to Happy Mum happy Baby podcasts- suffered with severe PND and gave me the strength to fight on. Love and prayers for you xxx

Thank you Giggorata. Have completely given up on ever sleeping again 😱.

Am listening to my music. It’s helping.

Balconi, my mum and baby days are long done. I’m just the wrong side of 60, but because I had to battle infertility to conceive, my kids are all sill quite young - 24 and 18 year old twins. We hit the jackpot all those years ago 🎉🎉🎉

Hii. How are you getting on?
I'm studying, but taking a break at the moment so can keep you company for a while.xx
Silly question, when do you eat?

Just come across your thread @LittleSpyintheSky. I can't seem to sleep tonight. Big hugs to you, you're doing a fantastic job, don't be hard on yourself.

I've been listening to the Christmas Chronicles podcast by Nigel Slater over the past few weeks. His voice is very soothing, I usually end up falling asleep in the middle of them, hence taking me so long to get through them all!

Have you watched Brooklyn 99 before? My DCs got us into this a few months ago, gives us lots of laughs.

Hope you manage some rest soon

Hello op. Sorry you’re having such a rubbish time. Sending you love and strength.
Also, that next Hilary Mantel is brilliant. Hope it is in your Christmas stocking.
I’m currently reading it; had it given to me a few months ago but only just got around to reading it.
In fact, I’ll tell you a ridiculous story about why I’ve not yet finished reading it .....
.....So......about a halfway through the book. Deeply engrossed and gripped by it. All good so far. I go to the utility room door to let my two dogs into the garden. There is a step outside the back door. Next to the step we keep the recycling boxes. Separate for glass, tins, plastic. I step onto the back step; no idea why as it’s 6am. Pitch black and peeing down with torrential rain. The cement on the step inexplicably gives way. The top slab of the steps acts like a see-saw on the bricks below. I get catapulted forward. I’m on course for the recycling but I don’t want to end up in the tin or the glass so I somehow manage to manipulate my landing so that my upper body and hands go into the plastic recycling. As an aside, am sooo relieved that I always clean the recycling properly!
My legs land awkwardly across the top of the other recycling bins but luckily my thick fleecy dressing gown saves the day and I don’t get speared by glass.
Anyway, the upshot of this is that two weeks later, I am still feeling the effects of this epic fall and the embarrassment of screaming in fright and turning the air blue in my quieter than quiet road. I swear I wrecked every, single element of my musculoskeletal system during that fall. I mean, how can one see-saw incident cause so much damage? And how can so many elderly and frightfully respectable neighbours with double glazing have been woken up by my early morning swearing and still be referencing “the incidence” two weeks later?
Anyhow, to cut a very long story short, I’ve not been able to resume reading the book because it’s too bloody big and heavy and my hands still hurt too much to hold it.
PS....please don’t tell your 18 year old twins this story in case they’re in school with my 17 year old and she finds out I’ve repeated the story! She won’t want the school cool girl down the road to connect the swearing with us, as her mum isn’t the swearing type. Her mum is also way cooler than me, so she’d never fall face first into a recycling bin....

That sounds really rubbish OP, I'm sorry you're feeling so rotten. I can't imagine CPAP is the most relaxing thing to contend with. I'm willing your O2 sats to go up and stay up (without the need for supplementary O2) very soon.

If you did want to try sleeping you could try listening to the Sleep concept album by Max Richter, which is based around the neuroscience of sleep. DH swore by it when he was in hospital and couldn't sleep.

Oh you poor darling. I hope you’ve managed to get to sleep but if you haven’t try not to stress about it and just go with the flow, you can always snooze later. My DH has a CPAP machine for sleep apnoea and he manages with it brilliantly but he is one of those annoying people who can fall asleep almost straight away regardless of what is going on, I really wish I was like that! You have been through so much. This is terribly hard but you can get through it too, I know you can. I’ll check back in later as I’m going to try to sleep myself now. Have an unMumsnetty hug from me.