Anyone who's been anywhere around the healthcare field knows all the problems that have been going on with Phillips brand CPAP/BiPAP/Ventilator machines. And, of course, Mom had been using a Phillips Trilogy now for a year.

- ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, dear

She'd never had a problem with hers - none of the stuff falling off or filtering shredding, none of that. But the company decided, with all the problems that Phillips had been having, that they were going to stop offering them.

(wasn't in healthcare, WAS in consumer related stuff.)

So, out of nowhere, our normal ventilator guy calls and is like 'so we got an order to replace your ventilator' and we were like... uh.... kay?

So here the guy arrives with a little machine called a VOCSN. It's pronounced vok-sen. It's named for all the different functions it consolidates into one machine: ventilator, oxygen, cough, suction, nebulizer. Pretty handy little thing.

Problem 1: It does not have a standby, so every startup takes about a solid 45 seconds.

Problem 2: In the process of phasing out the Phillips machines, they've also phased out carrying certain masks for no good reason because the masks are universal to go with every machine.

So Mom has been using these other masks that, guess what, she failed treatment on. But those are the masks they have now.

Her CO2 was getting worse and worse and worse because the masks just didn't fit right. Her lip kept popping below the bottom of the mask because she sleeps with her mouth open a lot, and that means that the whole thing a ventilator is supposed to do? Push air into and out of any breathable orifices? It wasn't able to do that.

And since the 'circuit' is broken without a seal over Mom's mouth and nose, it was alarming all the damn time and she couldn't sleep for shit.

With both of those going on, Mom's condition has been getting worse and worse, and then, on Monday, she was supposed to have a pulmonologist visit. We were looking forward to this so we could bring shit up with said doctor. We get there and they're like 'yeah, she's not here, we couldn't reach you, you're actually scheduled for next month'

So what did I do? I went on Amazon and found replacement parts for the one mask she has that was working and paid over $100 so we'd have enough for a couple months until we could jerk a knot in someone to actually pay attention to the patient with stage 4 COPD.

All in all, not happy.

But, amazingly, ONE NIGHT spent on the correct mask and Mom managed to sleep a good sleep and the machine didn't alarm at all.

Wow. Crazy. Almost like we had succeeded with a different mask.

I hate American healthcare.

jesus

uggggggggggggggggggggggggh

absolutely ridiculous

Day two of the new mask and it's working great. Astounding. I'm glad I've been inadvertently trained in pulmonary therapy.