Day 181: CPAP Supplies

Posted on | February 29, 2008 |

I almost wrote that today had been a no-spend day. After all, due to The Husband’s sweet generosity, I didn’t leave the house all day. I cleaned and organized and unpacked and washed, dried, and put away laundry all day while he took care of getting The Daughter to and from school and The Son to and from his classes.

So, since I never even left the house, I almost forgot that I managed to spend a boat-load of money today.

But thanks to the those instruments of technology — the telephone and the credit card — I managed to spend over $200.00 on medical supplies from Apria.

My CPAP mask desperately needs to be replaced. I mean desperately. I’d been waiting to hear from Apria (the medical equipment company) yesterday but I was away when they called and didn’t get home until after office hours. So I called back first thing this morning.

I learned a lot of bad news. First, none of the local stores/centers had the mask in stock so it had to be shipped. They offered to ship it overnight (they pay shipping, not me) and apparently there is reason to hope that I’ll receive the shipment tomorrow (Saturday) and not have to wait until Monday. The other piece of bad news was that I haven’t met my $500 deductible yet so I had to pay 100% out of pocket for this order. How can a stupid little piece of plastic cost $200!? Man, I want a piece of that racket!

Anyway, I don’t remember the exact charge to my credit card but it was somewhere over $200 but less than $225. That covers a new Classic Comfort mask, new tubing, and new filters. And it represents over $200 applied toward this year’s deductible.

With any luck, I’ll be looking and sounding like Frankenstein again when I got to bed tomorrow night. As much as I hate the thought of spending that much money on a stupid piece of plastic, I have to admit I’m completely lost without my CPAP machine. When things are working as they should, it’s easy to forget how much my health and well-being depend on the proper functioning of that box that sits on my bedside table. The events of this past week have once again reminded me of sleep-deprivation hell that my pre-Apnea diagnosis and my pre-CPAP life had decended into.

~ ~ ~ o o o O O O o o o ~ ~ ~

As much as I’ve learned to never let my CPAP supplies situation get this critical again, I think I need to invest some time and energy into looking at alternative sources for those supplies. In looking on the Internet tonight, I’m beginning to fear that I really got hosed on the price of my supplies. Now that the machine is mine, I believe that I’m free to purchase supplies from any source I choose and I don’t have to stick with the outfit that my old insurance company referred me to. This subject warrants some further research and investigation.

Related Posts for Further Reading

• No Related Posts

Comments