MedicAlert?

Returning from a recent trip to Michigan, my luggage was routed to London Heathrow and held up in customs. No suitcase for me for three days! The main problem with this is that I had decided to stick my CPAP machine in my checked bag instead of carrying it on with me. Oops. But, finally, at 1:08 in the Ante Meridiem, my bag showed up on the front porch and all was well and accounted for.

The day before my luggage was returned I was talking to my mother. My sister-in-law had a mild stroke and we were discussing her condition. We talked about my brother's poor health, my mother's ailments, her husband's ailments, and so on. This is the general course of our conversations: Ailments and the shortcomings of my siblings. I suspect it's the same conversation my brothers and sisters have with her, just with a few name changes.

Eventually we got around to my trip. Since I had been to Michigan, where I'm from, the inevitable end of the conversation was wondering why I haven't visited her in the middle of nowhere, Raccoon, Kentucky. As usual, I deflected it with the assertion that she is welcome to come visit us any time at all, but never has. Round and round until I mentioned my lost luggage.

Lost luggage is a fascinating thing, especially when it ends up in a different country. When I mentioned that the only reason I was really concerned about the luggage was because my CPAP was in it, I had to explain what a CPAP was, a breathing machine eventually cleared it up. Turns out my sister-in-law had one for a while. Maybe. That depends on how well my mother understood what I was talking about.

I had to explain why I need it, that I have sleep apnea. We went back and forth as I explained, and re-explained that sleep apnea means you stop breathing in your sleep and then end up snuffling and snorting and jolting yourself (and usually whoever is in bed with you at the time) awake. The CPAP blows a gentle stream of air down your nasal passage and keeps your airway open, allowing you to sleep peacefully. It takes a bit of getting use to, but once you use it for a while, you wonder why you didn't get one sooner. It makes a big difference. You're less tired during the day. You're more alert. You find yourself actually remembering things you would have forgotten before. And, in my case, I'm sure Joan likes it a lot more than even I do because it allows her to sleep through the night without me waking her with my obnoxious restlessness, tossing and turning, and breathing issues. As an added bonus, the quiet whisper of the air from the machine acts as white noise that helps her sleep even more. I can go to bed and sleep through the night and never even really move during the night. It works pretty well.

We talked a while more about my grandchildren. (Weird. I have grandchildren.). She wants some more pictures. My brother has a computer and the internet so he gets to see all of the photos I post on the web using Picasa. He tells her about them. She thinks I'm sending him photos and wants to know when I'm going to send her some. So I'll be spending some time printing out photos for my mother.

And then she says, "So, do you wear a bracelet?"

A bracelet? What the hell is she talking about? Now, non-sequitors are not unusual in these conversations, but this one is a bit out there. "A bracelet? Why would I wear a bracelet? What are you talking about?"

"You know, a medical bracelet."

"You mean a MedicAlert bracelet?"

"Yeah."

"For what?"

"You know, in case you fall asleep somewhere."

I kid you not. This was her line of thinking. If I use a CPAP I might fall asleep somewhere and not wake up or some such thing.

"I don't have narcolepsy! It's sleep apnea. I'm not going to just fall asleep somewhere and lay there until someone finds me."

But then again, given my history of when and where I have fallen asleep, maybe she's not so far off the mark. Maybe I should look into it. Maybe they have a bracelet that reads something like If found sleeping, make comfortable and leave be. Have a tasty treat available upon waking. Yeah, there just might be something to this after all.