Last weekend I took my first camping trip with the CPAP machine. I was a bit nervous about the whole thing, wondering whether it would be a problem, and whether it would all work as well it had been working at home since acquiring the Vader Mask. I purchased a $300 CPAP battery from an on-line source, and even paid the extra for expedited shipping to make sure I got it before we left. I made sure I had all the parts together, and charged it up the night before we started our very long drive.
Night #1 was an "on the road" night, and we stayed in a motel in Crescent City. Everything went beautifully, and I think I got the best night's sleep I've had in a very, very long time. According to FitBit, I had over 7 hours of restful sleep. It was glorious.
Night #2 ... yeah ... not so much ...
After a long day of driving, setting up the tent in the rain, and a rather incomplete dinner (Explanation: We ended up getting invited to join my parents at their friends' rental house for dinner. No one thought to tell me that the main course was pasta, none of which I can eat, until we were actually sitting down. So I ate some salad, and cheese, and a little meat sauce, and way too much wine for the "meal" I had consumed. Yeah ... not good.), I was pretty wiped out and ready to go to bed.
And then it happened. I set up the CPAP and the battery, went to plug in the DC connector, and ...
It. Didn't. Fit.
Three nights we are planning to be there, sleeping out in the wild, and I have no way to access the machine that has finally allowed me to get a decent night's sleep and feel like a human being again.
Fuck. Fuckety fuckety fuck fuck FUCK!
Not being in the best mental/emotional state to start with, I started to cry. Unfortunately, Brian was equally tired and frustrated (having also had to deal with setting up in the rain, as well as having our air mattress pump crap out on us midway through inflating our mattress so that he had to finish blowing it up manually, and was also suffering from some digestive issues from drinking too much cream in his coffees throughout the day), and therefore his response was really not what I needed at the time.
Commence major meltdown.
About a half an hour or so later, Brian was able to pry me out of the car and back into the tent, where I climbed into bed with him, and spent the next 2 hours listening to the rain on my tent and Brian's snoring, and trying in vain to fall asleep (even though I knew it would be crappy, non-restorative sleep). But nope, it wasn't happening. Not at all, not even close. Meanwhile, I'm getting colder, and the wet air is making me feel damp and miserable, and the bottom sheet isn't staying on the bed, so I'm there laying awake on a cold plastic air mattress feeling more and more panicked at the thought of having to do this for three whole days. I contemplated going across the road to where my parents were, and asking them if there was some way I could use the power in their trailer to operate my CPAP machine, but I really didn't want to wake them up for something I wasn't even sure they could help with. So I just lay there and suffered.
At one point, I gave up and got out of bed and went to sit in my car. I couldn't even do internet surfing on my phone, since I had no connectivity whatsoever. I did write a long diatribe in the "Notes" section of my iPhone about how much I hated my life at that moment. I will not publish said rant. Suffice it to say, I got quite a bit of the frustration out. I tried turning on the heater in the car, but realized about 30 seconds later that the rest of the camp didn't need to be kept awake by my car running. I also missed the raccoons rampaging through the camp, which is just as well. When the raccoons came, Brian also came out to bring me back in to the tent again. He thought maybe there was a bear in camp. I was really cold at this point, and figured it was better to be in the bed with his body heat, even if I couldn't sleep. I think I may have dozed fitfully for a few minutes at a time until the sun came up, and Brian took off to go use the restroom.
He must have run into my dad in the men's bathroom, or coming back from it, because I heard them talking, and shortly thereafter Brian was coming in to the tent with an extension cord. Yep, we had access to 110 power in the campsite the whole time.
D'oh!
So I plugged in, and hooked myself up, and went back to sleep for another 3 hours or so. Huzzah! Not my best feeling morning ever, but I was at least functional. Was even better after another hour's worth of nap that afternoon.
Needless to say, the next two nights were much better. It also stopped raining, and I fixed the bottom sheet so that it would stay on the bed.
So, yeah. Camping with a CPAP. Not so bad, actually. I still have the battery, and am getting the right cord this time. I'm still planning to go to a couple camping and SCA events this summer, so I don't think the $300 was a complete waste, though I did have to pay again for the second cord, and obviously the expedited shipping fee was completely unnecessary Oh well.
Oh yeah, and at the end of the weekend, on the last night? Brian got down on one knee in front of my parents and 215 other people and proposed. Right here, at this very site. It was pretty epic.
Looking forward to more camping and fun adventures with my fiancée this summer. And yes, we are totally going back to Gualala next year. And every year after that ... :)
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